Bedside Manners
by Athena Alexandria
Summary: AU. When Diane's cancer spreads to her spine Kate takes her to L.A. for treatment by one of the country’s most gifted spinal surgeons, but what happens when she mistakes his abrupt bedside manner for arrogance and takes an instant dislike to him? Jate.
1. Chapter 1

Since it looks like it's going to be pretty unanimous, I decided to get started the Pride and Prejudice AU, which is actually something I thought up after seeing 27 Dresses. I won't specify the timeline or Jack and Kate's backstories because that will give too much away, but if you read between the lines you should be able to guess. The only real differences I will point to at this stage are that I made Marc an oncologist because he makes such a good wingman for Jack and Kate's relationship with Diane a little better for reasons that will become clear as the fic goes on... ;)

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Chapter 1.

"How are you doing today, Diane?" Dr. Marc Silverman asked as he skimmed over her chart.

Kate had only known the redheaded oncologist for a few days but already she liked him and she knew that her mother felt the same. He was charming and funny with a warn nature and an easygoing personality: the exact opposite of most of the doctors she'd met.

And she'd met a lot since her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer two years earlier.

"Fine, thank you, Dr. Silverman," her mother said, eyeing the man who entered on his heels with a curious look. "Is this the specialist you were talking about?"

After taking some chest x-rays on the day that her mother was admitted, and discovering what he believed to be an abnormal growth on her back, Dr. Silverman had suggested bringing in an expert, a spinal surgeon he assured them was a brilliant doctor and an old friend.

"Indeed he is," he agreed, clapping the taller man on the shoulder. "Dr. Jack Shephard is one of our most promising young surgeons here at St. Sebastian's."

He was younger than Kate had imagined, and more attractive, with dark, close-cropped hair and eyes so intense that they sent a shiver through her as he scanned the room, taking in his surroundings. There was no doubt that he was the handsomer of the two.

"Dr. Shephard, I'd like you to meet Diane and her lovely daughter, Kate," he continued with an impish grin; any fears she'd had of him trying to hit on her had been put to rest when she realised that flirting with the patients and their families was all part of his exceptional bedside manner. "They flew in all the way from Iowa just so they could come to this hospital."

"It's so nice to finally meet you, Dr. Shephard. We've heard such wonderful things about you," her mother said, pulling herself up straighter in bed.

Instinctively Kate got up to help her but she pushed her hands away gently.

"We were actually really impressed by that surgery you did on that paraplegic woman a couple of years ago," she told him as she returned to her seat. "How everyone said she would never walk again, but you fixed her. All the medical journals are calling you a 'miracle worker'."

She meant it as a compliment, a testament to his superior skills as a surgeon, but to her surprise, he looked almost angry at being reminded of this. "You shouldn't believe everything you read, Miss…?"

He glanced down at the file in his hand, but before he could locate the answer she cut him off.

"I prefer 'Kate'," she announced, fixing him with a cool look. What kind of person got upset when someone said something _nice_?!

"Kate then," he finished with a sigh, and when he smiled it was strained, tapering off before it could reach his eyes.

He returned his attention to her mother, consulting the file again without looking at her. "I went over your the x-rays, and it appears that your back pain is the result of an extradural tumour located between your second and third thoracic vertebrae," he confessed with a stiffness that made it sound as though he were reading from a script. "Based on—"

It took Kate a moment to digest what he was telling them and then she felt sick to her stomach. "Wait, are you saying that not only does my mother have _cancer_, but she has a _tumour_ as well?" she insisted, momentarily forgetting her hostility towards him.

"Well the tumour was caused by the cancer, yes," he agreed in the same disinterested tone. "As I'm sure Dr. Silverman has told you, late stage breast cancer can be aggressive. Once it metastasises to the lymph nodes, it can also spread to the spine where—"

His efficient manner was starting to annoy her. Her mother was _dying_ and he was treating her condition with the same level of enthusiasm as an ingrown toenail?!

"Extradural? Thoracic? _Metastasises_? I know you're a doctor, so these words probably make sense to you, but do you think you could put it in English for those of us who _don't_ have a medical degree?" she retorted, losing patience with all his complicated double speak. Why couldn't he just spit it out?!

Both he and Dr. Silverman, who had moved to the foot of the bed when he started his spiel, looked taken aback by the venom in her tone. He blinked at her, furrowing his brow in confusion before explaining, "Basically, your mother has a tumour in the chest region of her spinal column that is eating away the healthy bone. If we allow it to grow, it will continue to compress her spinal cord, creating weak spots which may result in her being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life."

Now that she was beginning to understand his prognosis, she almost wished that she still didn't. "Wow, this just keeps getting better," she complained, dropping her head into her hands, sneaking a peek at her mother who had lapsed into silence at the first mention of the word 'tumour'.

Her pale face had turned a shade paler, but other than that she appeared calm.

Too calm.

If she'd had her way, she would have checked herself out and returned to her home in Cedar Rapids to die. It was Kate who was determined to fight this; sometimes it seemed like she was the only one.

"Can you cure her?" she pressed, massaging her temples with her fingers. It felt like years since she'd had a decent night's sleep: the last few months had consisted of camping out in hotels and hospital rooms, waiting for some sign of hope.

"At this stage the cancer is treatable but no longer curable," he confessed, and even though Dr. Silverman had already told them as much, Kate wanted to slap him for putting it in such blunt terms.

Could he even hear himself?! She'd never had any medical training, so there was a chance that she could be wrong, but she was pretty sure that that wasn't how you told someone their loved one was going to die!

Frustrated tears sprung to her eyes, and as she tried to brush them away with the back of her hand, she felt her mother's fingers close around hers, squeezing them with as much strength as she could muster.

But he seemed unmoved by her reaction as he continued to read from his notes. "I'd like to schedule a biopsy as soon as possible to determine whether or not the tumour is malignant.

"In the case that it's benign there are steroids we can administer, to reduce the inflammatory reaction around the tumour, and decrease the volume of the mass impinging on the spinal column," he told them and for a moment, Kate felt what could almost be described as hope, until he added, "But given your recent medical history I would say that that's unlikely."

He seemed to have already decided the outcome; she had to force herself to keep listening as he rushed on, careful not to look at either of them as he directed his words at her mother, "If it turns out that the tumour _is_ cancerous, which is more likely to be the case, then I'd say you're looking at surgery to remove it and then possible adjuvant radiation and chemotherapy to try to control the spread."

"You wanna operate on her spine? Isn't that dangerous?" Kate insisted, reluctant to commit to more surgery. Her mother had already had a double mastectomy, but by then it had escaped to her lymph nodes. There was no guarantee that they would get it all this time.

"She could end up worse off than she is now." At least she could still get to the bathroom on her own. That was something to be grateful for, at least.

"There are inherent risks involved," he agreed, rattling them off like a shopping list. "Nerve injury, infection, bleeding and stiffness… In the case of major complications there's also a small chance of paralysis or death."

"_How_ small?" she demanded, dropping her mother's hand, overwhelmed by the knowledge that, no matter what she _did_ or _didn't_ do she could still lose her.

"It's not common, but at the rate your mother's health is deteriorating it's a definite possibility. That's why you should take some time to think about it before we proceed," he told her with what almost passed for a sympathetic smile.

It was the first sign of emotion that he'd shown since he entered the room, and when it faded again, replaced by the clinical expression that she hated so much, she wondered if it was real, or if she'd just imagined it.

"I'll be able to tell you more once we get the results of your biopsy back," he concluded, closing the file and running his fingers through his dark hair. It stood up in tufts where he'd touched it when he let his hand fall back against his side and she couldn't deny the fact that he was pretty darn cute, even if he was a heartless jerk underneath. "If that's all I can help you with for now, I have to go prep for my next consult."

He regarded them each with a curt nod, already halfway to the door as he promised, "I'll get back to you with a time for that biopsy."

"That'll be fine," her mother agreed, recovering her voice now that she'd had time to digest the news that she was in worse shape than either of them had anticipated. "Thank you, Dr. Shephard, Dr. Silverman."

"I'll see you both again this afternoon," Dr. Silverman said with a smile as he stepped out into the hall.

When Kate failed to acknowledge that the spinal surgeon was leaving, picking at her cuticle as she stared at the wall, her mother tapped her arm to get her attention. "Katherine?"

"Yes, thank you for your time, Dr. Shephard," she managed to answer, her voice laced with more sarcasm than she intended. "It's been a real pleasure."

If she never saw him again it would be too soon.

She took a twisted sense of satisfaction from the hurt that passed over his features as he made his exit. After all of the pain he'd just inflicted on her he deserved it and more.

Her mother waited until he closed the door to fix her with a disapproving look. "Katherine! Did you have to be so rude? Honestly, I thought I raised you better than that."

She was twenty-seven years old now and mature enough to be managing her mother's treatment; she wasn't going to be lectured about manners like a child, not when _his_ had been much worse. If anyone was rude, it was _him._

"I'm sorry, Mom, but did you see how he kept staring at that file?" she complained, willing her to see it from her side. "He didn't make eye contact with you _once_ the entire time he was talking. And the way he kept throwing medical terms around like he's better than us because he could afford to go to Columbia…"

A fresh wave of anger hit her as she finished, "It's like you're not even a person to him, you're just a piece of meat he can use to win more awards."

"I highly doubt that was what he was thinking, Katherine," her mother scoffed, slumping back against the pillows now that they were alone.

She was beginning to look frail, a fact that scared Kate to no end. Until _Jack Shephard_ had come in and dropped his bombshell she had never really allowed herself to consider the possibility that this might be one fight that they couldn't win.

"He was just doing his job."

"Well maybe he shouldn't!" she insisted, jumping out of her chair so that she could pace the length of the room. "I don't like him, Mom, and I don't like the idea of him cutting you open."

"You wanted the best and according to everyone at this hospital, he's it," her mother reminded her with a touch of what sounded like resentment.

"Maybe he is and maybe he isn't," she agreed, refusing to give up even if her mother already had. "All I know is, I'd feel a lot better if we got a second opinion, from someone less..."

She wasn't even sure how to finish that sentence, what it was that bothered her so much about him. Something about him just got under her skin.

Less _Jack_, was the best that she could come up with, stunned by how comfortable she was with using his first name, even if it was only in her head.

Dr. Silverman was always just Dr. Silverman…

"We don't have to do this right now," her mother said, closing her eyes with a tired sigh. "Either way he said I'll need that biopsy so let's just wait until your father gets here before we make any decisions…"

* * *

This idea is a little strange and different to anything else I've written so I'm not sure how well it worked...

Next chapter: Jack's impressions on Kate as he and Marc discuss the consult, and a chance encounter at the vending machine, but will she accept his apology? ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the reviews. I'm so pleased that you're all enjoying it so far... ;)

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Chapter 2.

"What was that, man?" Marc said, turning to Jack with an incredulous look when he caught up with him in the hall.

"What was what?" Jack asked, keeping his expression neutral as he fell into stride beside him. He had another consult in less than fifteen minutes and he wanted time to go over his notes beforehand.

"'The cancer is treatable but no longer curable'," Marc repeated in a pompous tone that Jack was stunned to realise was supposed to be him. That wasn't what he sounded like… was it? "'At the rate your mother's health is deteriorating death and paralysis are a definite possibility'…"

He cringed as he recognised his own words. So maybe 'definite' wasn't the _best_ choice, but even so, he stood by everything else that he'd said. People deserved to know what they were in for, even if it wasn't good.

"All I did was tell them the truth," he defended himself, confused as to why his friend seemed convinced that this was such a bad thing. Did really he think that he should have lied to make the prognosis sound less serious that it was? Because in his opinion that would have been much worse.

"No, what you did in there was crush the hopes of a woman whose mother is dying," Marc corrected him, shooting him a reproving glance out of the corner of his eye, and for the first time, Jack felt shame for the way that he'd behaved.

His friend was right: he could have handled that particular consult better, but then how many ways _were_ there to break the news to someone that they were pretty well screwed?

"And let me be the first one to tell you that you made yourself sound like a real ass while doing it," Marc continued as they turned into the corridor that led to his office and Jack snuck a furtive glance behind them, relieved that his father wasn't around to hear this. The last thing he needed right now was another lecture about 'handing out hope'. "What if it was _your_ mom in there? Is that what you would wanna hear?"

There it was again.

Empathy.

Why couldn't Marc see that this was exactly the type of situation he was trying to avoid by distancing himself from the case? One that would require him to see the dying woman as anything other than another patient: as someone's wife, someone's mother.

At this, he felt an involuntary stab of empathy for her daughter, who had presumably left some kind of life behind in order to travel halfway across the country, just to hear that the cancer had spread almost beyond control. No wonder she was so irate: he couldn't even begin to imagine the nightmare that she must be going through. He didn't want to.

"Gorgeous, isn't she?" Marc said, changing the subject once he'd finished making his point, and for a moment, Jack was afraid that after knowing him for more than twenty years, his friend really could read his mind. He shot Jack a wry glance sidelong. "Of course she's not usually that hostile..."

"Who? The mother?" Jack asked, pretending not to know what he was talking about as he tried to decide whether or not to go back and try to justify his position.

Maybe if he could get her to understand where he was coming from, that he was just trying to protect them from both from further disappointment…

"Not the mother, the _daughter_. Kate," Marc explained, shaking his head with a grin. "What planet are you on today, man?"

"I, uh… I didn't really notice," Jack lied, flipping through the pages of her mother's file to keep his friend from seeing the furious blush he felt creep into his cheeks.

The truth was that he had noticed. It was hard not to, even when she was arguing with him.

"With your head stuck that far up your ass? I'm not surprised," Marc teased him, and Jack relaxed when he saw that he'd bought it. The last thing he wanted was for him to start dredging up the past.

"So, what? You'd prefer it if I flirted with the patients and their daughters?" he retorted before he could think about what he was saying, sighing inwardly when he realised that he'd just opened himself up for another attack.

"Like you're the poster boy for boundaries," Marc reminded him, just like Jack knew that that he would, his lips quirking with amusement as he tried and failed to suppress his grin.

"Fine, next time I'll try to be a little more respectful, okay?" Jack told him as he unlocked the door to his office, eager to escape the conversation before it forced him to go there again.

He was supposed to be turning over a new leaf. He would be professional but that was all. He wasn't going to get involved, not again.

Marc smirked as he continued past him, walking backwards towards the lift so that he could still see his reaction. "Too bad that chick already has it in for you."

* * *

Despite his vow to treat her mother's case like he would any other, Jack couldn't help feeling guilty for upsetting Kate. If they were going to be seeing each other every day until after the surgery, then the last thing either of them needed was all of that tension between them; by the end of his second consult he had made up his mind to apologise to her so that they could start their relationship over.

He got his chance later that evening when, venturing out of his office for coffee, he spotted her standing alone at one of the vending machines.

Even with her back to him he could tell that she was agitated. "Come on, work you piece of crap," he heard her mutter when he moved closer, pounding the glass with her palm.

She gave up with one last furious kick, leaning her forehead against it.

"That one's broken," he explained as he approached. "Sometimes you have to push the button a few times."

She jumped at the sound of his voice, and when she turned around he saw that she was crying. "What?" she insisted, her green eyes flashing with anger at being caught in such a private moment.

Against his better judgement, he felt his heart go out to her. He didn't want to feel sorry for her, to _care_. It would only make it harder when he failed.

"Here, I'll show you," he told her with a friendly smile, moving up alongside her and fixing her with an expectant look. "Which one was it?

She stared at him, her expression one of pure astonishment as she pointed mutely to one of the buttons. He pumped it twice with his index finger and with a soft thud the machine finally gave up its prize.

"Did you know the World Health Organization discovered a strong link between saturated fats and heart disease?" he said as he stooped to retrieve the packet from the tray and saw what it was. "They raise your blood cholesterol level."

He hadn't meant to sound like he was judging her, but he realised that that was how she must have taken it when she snatched it back from him without so much as a 'thank you'.

"Is there something you want, Dr. Shephard?" she asked, scrubbing at her face with the heel of her palm once she'd recovered from her shock.

He didn't know how to respond. He would have preferred to beat around the bush for a little while longer, until he had a better idea of how his words would be received, but he could see that he was losing her.

"I just, uh… I wanna apologise for some of the things I said in there this morning," he confessed, deciding that his best course of action was to cut straight to the chase.

Her brow furrowed in confusion as she tried to grasp what he was saying. "Why? They were true, weren't they?" she pressed, her breath hitching as she rewarded him with her full attention, and he realised that he'd just done exactly what he'd set out _not_ to do. He'd given her false hope, even if it was only for a moment.

"Well, yes…" he agreed, his heart sinking as he watched the walls come up again. She must despise him more than ever. "They were."

"Then you have nothing to be sorry for," she assured him stiffly.

He wanted to slink back to his office before he could humiliate himself any more, but he forced himself to make one last attempt at amends. "Still… I was just about to head down to the cafeteria. If you've got time, maybe I could buy you a decent meal to make up for it?"

To his dismay, her cold look turned even colder and he saw that all he'd succeeded in doing was offending her further. "While I'm dying to know what the great Dr. Shephard's definition of a 'decent' meal is, I think I'll stick with the Oreos," she told him, stalking off in the direction of her mother's room.

He hated the way she spat his name, as though it were a dirty word. Why couldn't she just acknowledge the fact that he wasn't a bad person? All he'd ever done to her was do his job. "Kate…"

She stopped, spinning back around, and as soon as she did, he wished that she hadn't.

"You know what?" she retorted, determined to get the last word in. She raised her left hand, and for the first time, he saw the flash of a ring. "I'm engaged and I'm _really_ not interested, so if for some reason you think I'm gonna sleep with you so you'll do my mom's surgery, you can forget it."

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Next chapter: Kate insists on staying for the biopsy and we meet her fiance... ;)


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks for the reviews. Those of you who are feeling bad for Jack, don't worry, he gets his own back in this chapter... ;)

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Chapter 3.

"I have a delivery here for the most beautiful woman in the hospital," a voice announced and Kate's heart lifted as she recognised it as her best friend and fiancé's.

"Tom!" she cried, jumping up from the visitor's chair and rushing towards him when he entered the room carrying a bunch of pink and white carnations.

He hadn't mentioned that he was flying out to see her when she'd spoken to him the day before, so his visit was a welcome surprise; she moved to kiss him but he swept her into a fierce embrace instead.

The gesture struck her as strange, distant; as he buried his face in her hair, she couldn't shake the sense of a disconnect between them, but she forced herself to ignore it. He was probably just worried, like she would be if the situation were reversed.

"Sorry, it says 'Diane', not 'Katie'," he teased her, pretending to read the card as he let go, and grinning back, she decided that whatever it was she must have imagined it. He was still the same old Tom.

"The flowers are lovely, Tom," her mother said with an appreciative smile as he handed them to Kate and she watched her arrange them in a vase alongside the ones that her father had sent. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he told her as he greeted her with a gentle hug. "How're you feeling?"

If anything, Kate thought that her mother looked _worse_ than the day before – frailer and sallower – but she knew that she had to have gotten her stubbornness from somewhere.

"Much better now that you're here," she assured him, her eyes twinkling as she cast a sly glance at Kate. "Maybe you can convince my daughter to eat something that doesn't come packaged in a foil."

He laughed, fixing Kate with a smirk as he dragged up a chair. "I'll do my best, but you know how strong-willed she can be."

He raised his hands in mock surrender when she whacked him in the arm as payback for siding against her. "See what I mean?"

"I didn't know you were coming," she told him a moment later when their jovial mood dissolved, wondering if he was really there to check up on her.

He wasn't happy about her coming out to L.A. in the first place; in fact, when she'd announced her decision, he seemed to take it as a personal insult, not just against him, but his colleagues. She could never get him to see what was wrong with the hospitals in Iowa.

"How could I stay away?" he agreed but his smile, was weak, uncomfortable and he wouldn't meet her eyes.

There was definitely more to it than that, but before she could press him for details, there was a sharp, efficient rap at the door and Dr. Shephard walked in.

It was the first time that she'd seen him since their encounter at the vending machine; she still didn't know what his game was. One minute she had to force him to acknowledge her, the next he wanted to share a meal with her. It didn't make any sense.

Much like him. She didn't think that she would ever be able to figure him out.

"Tom, this is Dr. Shephard, the surgeon I told you about," she said as he picked up her mother's chart. She didn't bother to elaborate on what she'd said. Let him sweat on that for a while.

"Dr. Shephard, this is my fiancé, Tom," she continued when he glanced up, in case he thought that she was lying, almost smug as she finished, "He's a doctor too."

He couldn't possibly think that she would be impressed with him after that.

"Resident. I'm only a resident, Katie," Tom reminded her with an embarrassed smile but she ignored him, locking stares with the surgeon instead.

"Oh really?" he replied, holding her gaze and she narrowed her own eyes when it hit her that he was challenging her. She hadn't expected him to engage. "What medical school did you go to?"

"University of Iowa. I'm at Mercy Medical Centre right now," Tom explained, and she could hear the confusion in his tone.

The surgeon cocked one eyebrow at her, the corners of his lips twitching into to what she was sure was a superior smile, and she felt herself becoming indignant.

"I know it's not _Columbia_," she told him, "but some of us were lucky to even go to college."

"You went there too?" he asked, serious all of a sudden, and for the first time, she thought that he sounded interested. "What did you study?"

"Early childhood education," she agreed, folding her arms defensively as she anticipated his next question.

"So you're a kindergarten teacher?"

"Waitress," she corrected him, daring him to comment. "I work in a diner."

She waited for him to say something, but he didn't, continuing to scrutinize her with his intense stare, his expression unreadable, until her mother broke up the interrogation.

"Are you here to do the biopsy, Dr. Shephard?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," he agreed, tearing his eyes away from Kate's, and she was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment at losing his attention.

"Isn't that the pathologists' job?" Tom piped up, shifting in his seat beside her as he tried to catch her gaze. "You're a surgeon – don't you have something more important to do?" He seemed to want him to leave.

"I have time," the surgeon assured him as he began unpacking an array of implements – including two syringes – and laying them out in front of him.

"Well do you mind if I stay and watch?" Tom pressed. "I've never seen one done before."

"No, not at all," he said, forcing a smile. He shot Kate a glance out of the corner of his eye. "Maybe you should go get some coffee or something."

It was hard to tell if he was being patronizing or just expressing his concern. "I'm staying too," she insisted, fixing him with a defiant glare. She wasn't going to let him tell her what to do.

He looked to her mother for approval, returning to what he was doing when she gave him a slight nod.

"Suit yourself," he agreed with a vague shrug.

She could feel herself growing increasingly agitated as he checked her mother's vitals and recorded them on her chart. How dare he dismiss her like that?

"I'm going to give you something to numb the area," he told her mother as he undid the ties on the back of her gown and helped her to scoot forward in bed. "This might sting a little."

As she watched him swab the area and inject her, it occurred to Kate that while his words were blunt and sometimes hurtful, his touch almost made up for it by being gentle and considerate, and she found herself wondering how it would feel to have his skilled hands brushing _her_ skin like that…

"How's that?" he asked and she tensed, feeling her whole body heat up with embarrassment until she realised that he was still talking to her mother.

"Tingly – like pins and needles," she agreed, causing him to smile as he finished preparing the second, larger syringe.

"Good."

Kate had to turn away as he inserted it carefully into her mother's spine, waiting until he announced, "All done," to look at him again.

He wiped the wound clean with the same delicate movements, covering it with an adhesive and helping her back into her gown and Kate had to force herself to concentrate and not imagine what it would feel like to have those nimble fingers fumbling with her own clothes…

She shouldn't be having those thoughts. Not about _him_.

She didn't even like him.

"Now you may feel some minor discomfort – throbbing and even some bleeding," he was explaining when she tuned back in. "Those are both normal side effects but get one of the nurses to page me if you have any concerns."

He finished packaging the sample, labelling it with her mother's name, along with the date. "I'll get this straight down to the lab," he assured them as he gathered up the rest of the equipment. "We should have the results in about a week. Once we know exactly what kind of tumour we're dealing with we'll have a better idea of your options."

He paused when he reached the door, shooting Kate a look as if to say, "See? I can be nice". "I'll check in with you tomorrow to see how you're doing," he told her mother with a reassuring smile.

"Thank you, doctor," she said, returning it and Kate could see that he'd won her over.

"Nice to meet you, Tom," he added as he let himself out of the room and even though she was determined to go on hating him, she couldn't help feeling slighted by what she knew must have been a deliberate omission on his part.

He was punishing her for rejecting him the night before. He had to be.

"Can I talk to you, Katie?" Tom asked when he was gone.

"Sure," she agreed, doing her best to push the surgeon from her mind as she returned her attention to him. He had nothing to do with her. _Tom_ was the one she was marrying.

"Outside?" he added.

"You kids go ahead," her mother told them, shifting her pillows to make herself more comfortable. "I'm going to take a nap."

Kate didn't like the look he was giving her; she would have preferred to stay where she was, but she dragged herself out of her chair, following him into the hall with a reluctant sigh. "Something wrong?"

"What just happened in there?"

"What d'you mean?" she asked, confused. He was the one who wanted to stay and watch.

"'This is my fiancé. He's a doctor too'," he quoted and she frowned, not sure what they were supposed to be fighting about. After all the hours that she'd spent helping him prepare for his exams, surely she'd earned the right to brag.

"You _are_ a doctor, Tom," she reminded him. "I can't help it if I'm proud of you."

"Is that what that was?" he insisted. "Cause what I don't get is why you were flirting with him." His expression darkened with anger. "I'm not even sure you could call it flirting – you looked like you wanted to shove him up against the wall and tear his clothes off. I've never seen you act like that before, Katie. It was a little disturbing."

She knew that his words should have offended her, but all she felt was a mixture of guilt and shame. There had been a moment of attraction, but that was all it was: a moment. She was just going to have to make sure that it didn't happen again.

"You think I was flirting with him?" she complained. "_Please_. Jack Shephard is an arrogant jerk. You should have seen him yesterday – he told me Mom's cancer was incurable, that she probably wouldn't even make it through surgery, and then right after he tried to get me to go to dinner with him."

Tom's eyes widened in shock, disgust palpable in his tone. "He hit on you? Isn't that against hospital regulations? You should report him."

"He did," she agreed, even though she knew that she wouldn't, not when she was finding it difficult to remember why she'd been so incensed by his invitation in the first place. It wouldn't have been _so_ bad… would it?

The thought made her shudder, and she was surprised to realise it wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling.

"But don't worry, he knows I'm not interested," she assured him quickly. "I wouldn't go out with him if he was the last man on earth."

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Next chapter: Jack overhears an interesting phone call about Kate... ;)


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for the reviews. The weekend's over for me now so updates will probably slow down again (from daily to every couple of days) but those of you who've followed my stories know how reliable I am... ;)

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Chapter 4.

While it was still too early for Jack to tell if Kate was coming around, he was pleased that he'd managed to gain the upper hand during their last meeting. Her hatred of him was based almost solely on the way that he dealt with his patients, which was why she didn't seem to know what to make of him when he was going above and beyond what even she expected from him.

Since he was only acting as a consultant on her mother's case, there was no need for him to keep checking on her – not unless the biopsy showed that the tumour would have to be removed – but he was determined to show Kate how thorough he could be by making good on his promise.

His first surgery had been cancelled so he decided to stop by early, before he tackled the ever-growing mound of paperwork on his desk; he had just rounded the corner, into the corridor that led to Diane's room when he spotted Tom pacing outside.

"Honestly? I didn't get a chance," he was saying in a low voice and Jack stopped when he noticed the cell phone pressed to his ear.

He didn't want to interrupt what could be an important call; he was debating whether or not he should come back later when he realised that he was talking about Kate.

"Her mom has a tumour. The doctors think it might be more cancer. Nothing's certain yet, but it doesn't look good. She's probably gonna need another operation."

Even though his parents had taught him that it was rude to eavesdrop, he couldn't seem to help himself. He wanted to know more about her; about what made her the way that she was, but she was always so closed off to him.

He still hadn't gotten over his surprise at discovering that despite going to college, she was still slaving away in a diner for minimum wage; it was just one of the things that he would have loved to ask her about if he could he ever convince her to be civil to him for long enough.

He watched Tom run his palm over his face as he listened to something on the other end, and he could see that he was getting agitated as he hissed, "I _know_. I know I said that I would but she's pretty torn up about it. She's still my best friend_. _I can't do that to her right now – not when she needs me."

His words hinted at an agenda, one that had nothing to do with wanting to make sure that his fiancée was okay; Jack's chest tightened as he put two and two together and figured out what he'd come there to do.

If he didn't know any better, he would say that it sounded like Tom was planning on leaving Kate as soon as he could find the right moment.

His suspicions were confirmed when Tom added in a gentler tone, "I'm sorry, Rach, but you're just gonna have to wait. It'll all blow over soon, I promise. I just need you to be patient."

He turned back towards the door as though afraid that at any moment Kate would emerge and catch him in the act. "She thinks I'm bringing us coffee. Can I call you back later, when things settle down?"

He paused again as he waited for an answer. "Okay, love you too. Bye," he murmured a second later, hitting the end button, starting when he caught sight of Jack.

"Dr. Shephard!" he said, the colour draining from his cheeks as he shoved his cell back into the pocket of his coat. "Have you heard back from the lab?"

The question angered Jack when it occurred to him that he wasn't so much concerned about his future mother-in-law as he was searching for some kind of timeframe to give the woman on the phone.

Kate was convinced that he was planning to marry her: how long did he think he would be able to string her along? Until they got the results back? Until after the surgery? Until her mother was in the ground and he was finally free?

"Not yet," he agreed, unable to keep the disapproval out of his voice despite his vow not to get involved. She didn't deserve that. No one did. "But then a week was being conservative. We're a little understaffed at the moment, so sometimes it can take much longer." He doubted that it would take more than a few days but he didn't want to encourage Tom in his belief that he could keep up the pretence until then.

He didn't wait to see his reaction, striding past him and knocking twice before letting himself into the room.

Tom entered on his heels, and he got the distinct sense that he was afraid of what he knew and what he might say. He wasn't Jack's patient, so he wasn't bound by any particular oath to keep his secrets: Jack was tempted to blurt it out right then but he couldn't do that to Kate or her mother, not when they both seemed to think so highly of him.

"Look who I found out in the hall," Tom announced in a falsely bright tone and Jack could tell that he was nervous.

Good, he thought. He should be. Sooner or later she was going to catch him in a lie.

"Good morning, Dr. Shephard," Diane said as both women looked up, her with a friendly smile and Kate with a wary expression.

Jack managed a polite grimace back, channelling all of his effort into holding his tongue.

"I thought you said you were going to get coffee?" Kate asked Tom, her brow furrowing in confusion when he sank into the chair beside her and Jack wondered if she knew that something was up.

That was one thing that he could say for her: she was shrewder and more intelligent than a lot of the women that he'd met. It was one of the first things that he'd noticed about her.

That and those beautiful sea green eyes.

Tom fidgeted in his seat, sneaking a furtive glance at Jack to make sure that he wasn't going to contradict him. "I was, but I ran into Dr. Shephard on the way so I thought I'd check on the biopsy results."

It was hard not to notice how guilty he looked as he scratched his head, his gaze darting towards the window. Jack wondered how he'd missed it before.

He wasn't happy about being made an accomplice but it wasn't his place to tell her the truth so he kept his mouth shut, neither confirming nor denying this statement. All he had to do was keep reminding himself that Kate's personal life was none of his business.

She didn't seem to register how uncomfortable he was as she asked, "Do they know what it is?" more interested in anything that he could tell her about her mother's condition than why her fiancé had come back empty-handed.

Her concern only served to make him feel even sorrier for her. Not wonder she was so oblivious. She had more important things on her mind.

While he knew that it was going to cost him by lowering her opinion of him even further, he couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes, solving the problem of where to look by shifting his attention to her mother.

"No, but that doesn't mean anything. I wouldn't expect them to at this stage," he replied with a confident smile, more to her than her daughter, who he could see frowning at him out of the corner of his eye. "How's the wound healing up? Has it been giving you any trouble?"

"It's still a little sore," she confessed. "Is it supposed to feel bruised?"

"Mind if I take a look?" he checked, welcoming the distraction it provided. At least this was something that he knew how to handle.

"Of course not," she agreed, using the rail to pull herself forward and he peeled the adhesive back so that he could examine the puncture mark left by the needle.

"It's not infected," he told her once he was satisfied that everything appeared normal. The skin was a little pink so he decided to err on the side of caution. "I'm just going to change the dressing for you while I'm here."

He cleaned the area with antiseptic and recovered it with a fresh bandaid. "There. D'you have any questions?" he asked, praying that she wasn't going to trap him into a lengthy conversation.

"I had one but it seems like my daughter already asked it for me," she joked and he forced himself to give her a weak smile in return as he let out the breath that he was holding.

"Great. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish my rounds," he told her, seizing on the opportunity to escape. He was careful to keep his expression neutral as he left the room. "I'll let you know as soon as the results come in."

* * *

As hard as Jack tried to forget what he knew, it weighed heavily on his conscience for the rest of the day.

"Something bothering you, man?" Marc asked when they met in his office for lunch. They were supposed to be discussing another case but Jack was finding it difficult to concentrate as his thoughts wandered back to the scene that morning. "You seem kind of… tense."

"Did you know Kate's engaged?" he asked, earning himself a surprised look.

"You mean did I see the ring?" Marc said. He flashed Jack his trademark grin when he nodded. "First thing I checked."

"I met her fiancé yesterday. I think he's cheating on her," Jack confessed, struggling to keep his tone conversational. He still hadn't been able to figure out what he should do with this information. Maybe his friend could tell him.

"You _think_?" Marc repeated, sounding thoughtful as he took a sink of his drink. "So you don't actually _know_?"

"It seems pretty obvious. I heard him talking to another woman on the phone," he explained. It could have been his sister or his cousin or just a close friend, but somehow Jack knew that it wasn't.

"So?" Marc pressed and Jack blinked at him, taken aback.

"_So_ if there's something going on, someone needs to tell her," he continued, wondering why this was so hard for his friend to understand. He wished that someone had told _him_, so he that didn't have to feel like such an idiot when the truth finally came out.

"You like her," Marc said with a smirk, sitting up straighter in his chair. "I knew something was up the other day."

"What?" Jack stared at him, stunned. She intrigued him, but she wasn't his type. He preferred women who were actually willing to give him the time of day.

"No. I just feel bad for her because she doesn't seem to have a clue," he argued.

"Why else would you care so much about this?" Marc insisted.

It seemed crazy to even entertain the thought when nothing could ever happen between them. "Even if I _did_ like her – and trust me, I'm not saying that I do—" he added quickly in case his friend got any more ideas "—She's my patient's daughter." He could just imagine what his father would say if he found out.

"That hasn't stopped you before," Marc reminded him, softening when he saw that he'd struck a nerve.

"Look, man, I'm sure she'll find out eventually," he assured him with a sympathetic smile. "But I'm telling you, you _have_ to stay out of it."

He levelled him with a warning stare, all seriousness now. "She won't thank you."

Jack sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew that his friend had a point. He could only imagine how she would react to him telling her that her mother was dying and her fiancé was having an affair in the space of less than a week. She would think that he was doing it on purpose, just to spite her.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

* * *

Next chapter: Jack and Kate share their first civil conversation, and he disregards Marc's warning to ask her about Rachel... ;)


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks for the reviews. This should make most of you pretty happy: a whole chapter of Jate! ;)

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Chapter 5.

It was two days since Kate had had any contact with Dr. Shephard and she still couldn't decide whether or not that was a good thing. She was sure that she'd hated him when he was around, but now that he wasn't, she found herself missing his visits to her mother's room, when she would have an excuse to talk to him without admitting that maybe she was a little quick to judge him.

Her mother was usually exhausted by lunchtime, and Tom had left her to fly home again the day before, so she'd taken to spending the afternoons in the cafeteria, finishing the project that had started as a Christmas present, but that she was now eager to get done as soon as possible.

The spinal surgeon had already come in once with Dr. Silverman without acknowledging her presence, so she was surprised when she glanced up to see him approaching her table alone, coffee in hand.

"Mind if I sit down?" he asked, clearing his throat as he stopped alongside her.

She didn't want him to know that she was thinking about him, or that him being there made a difference to her, so she just shrugged, feigning nonchalance as she answered, "Suit yourself," without shifting her attention from what she was doing.

When she snuck a peak at him out of the corner of her eye, she saw that he looked taken aback, but he didn't say anything as he slid into the booth across from her.

As he sat there watching her work, she could feel herself growing self-conscious, aware that her whole life was on display in front of him. It was enough to make her want to hide it from his scrutinizing gaze, but she didn't want him to think that she was ashamed.

"What's that?" he asked after a moment, when his curiosity finally got the better of him.

"It's a scrapbook," she explained, concentrating on laying everything out so that she wouldn't have to look at him, to see if he thought that it was a stupid idea.

He didn't strike her as someone who was overly sentimental. In fact, he seemed determined to avoid anything that couldn't be quantified or proven.

"I'm making it for my mom, to remind her of what it was like before she got sick. I thought it might convince her to hold on until after the surgery. It just helps to keep busy, you know?"

She expected him to point out how crazy this was – that if anything was going to keep her mother alive, it was medicine – but to her relief, he didn't.

"That's nice," he agreed, and the next time she allowed her eyes wander up to his he was smiling, a sad smile that almost made her feel sorry for him. She would hate to trade places with him, holding people's lives in the palm of her hand. "I'm sure she'll appreciate the work you put into it."

She flashed him a grateful smile and this time they fell into a companionable silence, him sipping his coffee while she went back to digging pictures out of the shoebox and arranging them neatly on the page.

"Is this you?" he checked, picking up one from almost twenty years ago of a dark haired girl, nine years old, crouching alone on a rock with a fishing rod in her hands, wearing a look of fierce concentration.

Kate could still remember the day that it was taken. It was from a family camping trip, one of her happiest childhood memories. "Yeah, that's me," she agreed with a wistful smile as she took it from him, wishing that she could go back to that moment, when her mother was healthy and everything was so much simpler.

"And this…?" He shifted his attention to one underneath it. It was from a few minutes later: a man in his early thirties had come to sit on the bank beside her with a rod of his own, their heads turned towards the camera, smiling.

"That's my dad."

"Where is he?" he asked, his voice tentative, and she knew what he must have been thinking: if he was alive then what kind of many must he be, staying away from his family at a time like this?

"He's in Iraq," she explained before he could assume that he'd walked out on them. "He tries to make it home when he can but I've only seen him a few times since this started."

When she'd called to tell him what was happening he'd promised that he would get back as soon as he could, but at the rate the cancer was spreading, she was starting to worry that he would be too late.

"He's a soldier?" he repeated, sounding surprised.

"A sergeant," she agreed. "He was my hero, growing up. I wanted to be just like him. I'd dress up in his fatigues and pretend that I was in the army too. He taught me how to shoot, how to track…"

She fished another picture out of the pile to show him and he grinned.

"Cute."

She decided then that he had a nice smile; she wasn't sure why he was so determined to hide it. It made a welcome change from the serious side of him that she was used to.

She returned to work as the conversation tapered off into another comfortable silence, not looking up again until he asked, "Who's this?"

He held up another picture of her, no more than seven this time, playing on the swings with a little dark haired boy, their matching chestnut heads bowed together as they laughed over something that one of them had said.

"That's Tom," she told him.

"Your fiancé?" he insisted, and when she glanced up at him, she could see how incredulous he was. "You grew up together?"

"We've been friends since kindergarten," she agreed, wondering if he would think that it was somehow sad or pathetic that she'd been with the same man her entire adult life.

Then again, there was something to be said for a relationship that solid and dependable. She knew that she could always count on him. "I guess that makes me pretty lucky, huh? Not many people can say they're actually marrying their best friend."

This seemed to make him uncomfortable; he fidgeted with his empty cup, crumpling it in his palm as he changed the subject. "Where is he now?"

"He had to go home for a couple of days," she confessed, returning the picture to the box. "Something to do with work."

"Is that what he told you?" he said, his dark eyes unreadable, and she could feel herself getting defensive.

"That's what he _told me_ because that's the truth," she insisted, irritated by the idea that he'd pigeonholed her as the naïve country girl who stayed with her childhood sweetheart because she didn't think that she could do any better. Tom was a good man and he was going to make a great husband and father when they finally got around to taking the next step. "He said they were doing some landmark procedure – I'm sure it's boring to you but we don't get many of those where we come from."

She was starting to remember why she'd found him so difficult to get along with in the first place. "He wants to be a paediatrician, you know," she told him, meeting his eyes with a hard look, unable to resist getting in a dig of her own. At least Tom cared about his patients. She couldn't see _him_ going that far out of his way for one of his.

His eyes darkened with anger and she found herself wondering why he was trying so hard to be nice to her when he clearly disapproved of that way that she lived her life.

"Kate, does Tom have a sister?" he checked with a troubled frown and at first she wasn't sure what to say. What did that have to do with anything?

"No, he's an only child like me," she told him after a moment, thrown by this new line of questioning.

"Is he close to any of his cousins?"

"Why are you so interested in him all of a sudden?" she asked, narrowing her brow at him in suspicion. Why did he think that Tom's family was any of his business?

"I just have one more question and then I'll drop it," he insisted. "Do you know if he knows anyone called Rachel?"

"Doesn't ring a bell," she agreed, not sure that she liked where the conversation was headed, wishing that he would just take the hint and leave. She should have known better than to think that he would come over and talk to her without having an ulterior motive.

"You're sure you haven't heard that name before? Maybe someone he works with?" he pressed.

"I told you, I've known him since we were six," she reminded him, losing her patience with him. Didn't he have anything better to do that interrogate her about Tom? "I know all his friends. If he had one called Rachel I would have met her by now."

"Maybe he _doesn't want_ you to meet her," he suggested with a meaningful look.

It couldn't be true. They told each other everything. They _shared_ everything. Why would he start keeping secrets from her now?

"What exactly are you implying, Dr. Shephard?" she demanded, feeling her anger return. She couldn't believe that she'd ever been attracted to him, even if it was only for a few moments. How could she betray Tom like that?

"_Jack_," he corrected her, his tone shifting into one of almost sympathy. "I'm not on duty right now."

She didn't need his sympathy because there was nothing going on. Her mother was sick, that was all.

"_Dr. Shephard_," she repeated with a defiant look. If he thought that they were friends now just because she'd shown him a few pictures…

"I heard him arguing with a woman on his cell, the other day when I met him in the hall. He called her 'Rach'," he confessed.

"That could've been anyone!" she argued, jumping up so fast that she knocked the box of pictures to the floor. How dare he go around making accusations like that? He was right the first time. She was just someone from work…

"It could have, but what if it wasn't?" he insisted as he scrambled out of the booth to help her pick them up. "I just thought I should tell you—"

"Well maybe you shouldn't have," she retorted, snatching them from his hands and dumping them back inside.

"Kate…"

"No!" she cried, louder than she'd intended, tears prickling her eyes as she shoved the lid back on and climbed to her feet. Was he _trying_ to ruin her life or did he just get some perverse pleasure out of hurting her? It seemed like he wouldn't be happy until he'd taken away everything that mattered to her. "Why d'you have to say everything that's on your mind? Why can't you just leave things alone?"

She slammed the album shut and hastily gathered the rest of her belongings, striding past him towards the exit before he could stop her.

"Kate," she heard him call after her, sounding helpless and defeated, but all she could think about was getting out of there. She couldn't deal with this now. She couldn't deal with _him_. "Please don't walk away again. I'm just trying to help."

"You know what, _Jack_?" she insisted, not sure who she was more upset with: him for putting the idea into her head or herself for not reading the signs. "Maybe next time you think about opening your mouth, you just… shouldn't."

* * *

Next chapter: Jack takes matters into his own hands and confronts Tom, some more Marc and the biopsy results come in... ;)


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks for the reviews. Sorry I took longer than usual to update but the last few days have been crazy and I was only able to work on this a little bit at a time. Those of you who are hoping for more Jate, keep reading. I think you'll really like what I have planned for chapter 8. I know I'm excited about it... ;)

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Chapter 6.

Jack tried calling after Kate but she didn't turn around, disappearing through the glass doors without a backwards glance.

Watching her go, he realised, with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, that Marc was right. He _did_ like her. There was no way that he would feel this bad for hurting her if he didn't.

He wanted to go after her, to say something to smooth over the differences between them, but he had to get back to work. He couldn't keep treating her mother's case as special at the expense of his other patients.

He was about to follow her back out into the corridor when he felt something crackle under his shoe; stooping to pick it up, he saw that she'd missed one of the pictures in her haste to get away from him.

It was the one of her and Tom on the swings as kids.

She'd looked so happy back then with her unruly dark curls and the smattering of freckles across her upturned nose and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, but something – her mother's illness, he guessed – had changed that.

This time as he sat down to examine it, he found himself wondering not how her fiancé could throw away twenty years, but what it would be like to have known her that long.

In that moment, he would have given anything for her to talk to him just once without it escalating into a fight; for her to let him in on whatever was going on inside her head instead of running away every time he tried to connect with her.

Tom didn't seem to realise how lucky he was.

When he couldn't get her out of his thoughts, he went to the door of her mother's room twice, to apologise, but he couldn't find the nerve to go inside; he was still brooding over their latest disastrous encounter that evening when Marc stopped by his office to suggest going for a drink.

"Don't tell me… You saw Kate again," he guessed as he flopped into the chair on the other side of the desk, taking note of Jack's dejected expression.

"I told her," Jack confessed, putting his pen down, cringing as he watched his friend's eyes grow wide with surprise.

"You didn't! How'd she take it?" he asked.

"Exactly the way you said she would," Jack agreed, running his hand over his face with a sigh. He should have listened to Marc when he tried to warn him, instead getting involved. All he'd done was make himself a willing target for her fury. She didn't even seem to care that it wasn't him that she should be mad at. "She didn't thank me. She won't even talk to me now."

"Why d'you do this to yourself?" Marc insisted, shaking his head, softening when he saw how miserable Jack was without him rubbing it in. "I'm sorry, man – I know you were into her – but maybe it's for the best. You said it yourself – she _is_ your patient's daughter."

* * *

Over the next few days, Jack tried to remind himself of this, and sometimes he even thought that he believed it, but it didn't stop him from hoping that her mother's tumour _would_ turn out to be cancerous so that he would still have an excuse to see her.

Even though he knew that it was wrong, he couldn't seem to help himself. He wasn't ready for the relationship to end even if he was right about not being able to take it any further.

He got his wish on Saturday, just over a week after he'd performed the biopsy, when the results finally landed on his desk.

"We compared the cells from the tumour to the ones from your breast and I'm afraid it's metastic carcinoma – cancer," he told them when he stopped by Diane's room to pass them, ashamed of how relieved he felt.

Tom had returned from his mysterious trip home, he noticed; he squeezed Kate's hand, giving her a reassuring smile that made Jack dislike him even more. Who did he think he was fooling with this supportive fiancé act?

"So I'm going to die?" Diane said, drawing his attention back to her. It wasn't a question but an admission of defeat. It made him think that it was _Kate's_ idea to come here. She seemed to know a lot about him.

"The average life expectancy of a patient whose cancer has metastasised to the bone is eighteen months to three years, which still gives us time," he told Diane, determined to help her fight it, for her daughter, even if she could never appreciate what he was doing for her.

For once Kate didn't seem to have a retort; glancing over at her, he saw how shaken she was, her freckled face ashen with fear. Tom noticed this too, slipping his arm around her and she settled against him with a grateful look.

Watching him murmur something into her hair, close to her ear, Jack wondered if that was why she'd stubbornly refused to believe what should be obvious to her: because her mother was dying and her father was overseas and she was afraid of ending up alone.

"You still wanna do the operation," Diane pressed with a weary sigh and he was afraid that she was going to tell him that she didn't.

"It's only a single tumour at this stage so if we remove it, we may be able to stop the spread," he agreed, hoping that this would encourage her. They had to at least try it. He couldn't have her death on his conscience, especially when Kate would find a way to blame him for that too. "It should also alleviate some of your back pain by reducing the pressure on your spine."

"That's a lot of 'mays' and 'shoulds', Dr. Shephard," Kate piped up, her eyes cold now that her moment of vulnerability had passed. "Is there anything you _do_ know?"

The subtext of her words wasn't lost on him.

She was just hurt and looking for someone to take it out on, he decided. He didn't want to get into another argument with her so he concentrated all of his efforts on ignoring her as he did what he came there to do.

"I'd like your permission to run some more tests," he told her mother, watching her out of the corner of his eyes as she sunk back into her chair with her arms folded. He could see by the way she pursed her lips into a thin line that she was angry that he wouldn't give her the fight she was gunning for. "Radiology and a general health check to make sure surgery is the best course of action for you right now."

Diane forced a weak smile for him. "Of course, doctor. Whatever you need."

He knew that he should go make the arrangements but he couldn't leave without clearing the air. "Kate, would you mind stepping out into the hall for a moment?" he said, trying to keep his tone mild, polite. "There're a few things we need to sort out."

She glanced over at Tom and he got up too, following them to the door.

"Whatever you wanna say, you can say it in front of him. This concerns him too," she insisted when he gave her a wary look.

He tried to read her expression, she wasn't making it easy for him to tell whether he'd been too discreet, or she understood what he wanted and was determined not to give it to him.

"It's confidential," he argued, doing his best to maintain an air of professionalism.

"If this is about what happened the other day, I think we should put it behind us," she told him, fixing him with a meaningful look and he felt a surge of hope at the idea that she was willing to try to get over her issues with him until she continued, "Everyone says you're the best – I don't have to like you, I don't have you trust you, I just have to trust that."

She might be able to let it go but he couldn't. He hated knowing that she still thought of him as the insensitive ass that was out to ruin her life. He wasn't the bad guy here.

"Fine," he agreed through gritted teeth.

He almost smiled at how stunned she was when he turned to Tom. "Kate said you went home to sit in on a procedure – I'd love to hear about it when you've got time," he told him, trying to catch her eye when his cheeks flushed and he looked flustered. Couldn't she see that he was lying? He wasn't even particularly good at it?

"Um, sure."

"How about right now?" he suggested, realising that he had a better chance of catching him out _before_ he had time to concoct a more adequate cover story. "I have to finish my rounds but you're welcome to tag along. Afterwards I could take you for a tour of the hospital."

Tom blinked at him in confusion, as though he couldn't understand why he was being so nice to him and Jack knew that Kate couldn't either. "Thanks," he said slowly when she shrugged.

"Great," he agreed with a bright smile that made her to frown, her green eyes boring into his while she tried to figure out what had caused him to change his mind about her fiancé all of a sudden.

"I guess I'll see you later then."

As she placed a lingering kiss against Tom's lips – one that Jack got the sense was meant to assure him that she wasn't going to take what he'd said to heart – he found that he had to turn away.

It took him a moment to realise that it wasn't just the fact that he was cheating on her that made him uncomfortable. He was pretty sure that he still would have felt that way if he wasn't.

It was Tom who broke it, extricating himself from her with a chaste peck, leaving her standing alone in the hall, staring after them with an unhappy look, and annoyed as Jack was at her display, he couldn't help feeling bad for her.

"So where are we going?" Tom asked him as they got into the lift.

He waited until the doors slid shut behind them to speak. "I don't know," he confessed, his smile evaporating as he turned serious. "The truth is, there's something we need to discuss."

He could see Tom growing defensive, crossing his arms when he realised that he'd been ambushed. "Katie told me you came onto her the other night," he announced. "You're lucky I don't go to the chief of surgery, who I'm pretty sure happens to be your father as well."

Jack let out an agitated laugh, bringing his hand up to scratch the back of his head. Why did everyone think that, including Kate? "First of all, I just asked her to dinner. I never implied that I expected anything out of it."

He could feel himself getting angry at how hypocritical the younger man's jealousy was. How could he be upset about an innocent invitation when he was seeing someone else behind Kate's back? "And second of all, this isn't about me. This is about Rachel," he added to test his reaction.

He knew that he'd been right all along when Tom blanched. "I don't… I don't know what you're talking about," he stammered but he couldn't regain his composure.

Jack hit the button to stop the lift. "I heard you, fighting with a woman on your cell," he confessed. "We both know you didn't go back to Iowa for work."

"You're not gonna tell Katie, are you?" Tom pressed, dropping the pretence in his desperation, giving Jack the upper hand. "Because with everything else that's going on, it would kill her."

Jack considered admitting that he already had but he decided against it. It would be easy for him spin it to sound like he'd made it all up. "She'll get over it," he told him. "What she won't get over is you lying to her."

This he knew from experience.

"You think this is easy for me?" Tom insisted and Jack could see that he was trying hard to convince him that he wasn't a bad person. "She's my best friend and I love her but she's _never_ around, and even when she is, she's not. I came out here to break up with her. I didn't know her mom would be this sick. I didn't know it was gonna get this complicated."

If he was anyone else, Jack might have been able to muster up some kind of sympathy, but all he felt was disgust that Tom believed his betrayal was justified because his fiancée was out there trying to save someone's life.

As far as he was concerned, it wasn't enough to excuse what he was doing to her.

"She hates you, you know," Tom said when he didn't answer. "If you think she's gonna go out with you just because—"

Jack punched the button again to restart the lift. "She deserves the truth, and she deserves it sooner rather than later," he cut in so that he wouldn't have to hear anything else that Kate had said about him. He fixed him with a hard look to keep him from seeing how much these words had hurt him. "How you decide to tell her is up to you, but I won't help you keep this a secret from her."

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Next chapter: Kate and Diane talk about the surgery and Tom listens to Jack... ;)


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks for the reviews. I'm going to put the drop down to the lack of positive Jate, but don't worry, I'm building to something: chapter 8 will be the Jateyest chapter so far... ;)

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Chapter 7.

"Where's Tom?" Kate's mother asked her when she re-entered the room alone.

"Dr. Shephard took him for a tour of the hospital," she explained, still finding it hard to believe. One minute the surgeon was making slanderous accusations behind her fiancé's back, the next he wanted to take him under his wing? It was a little weird.

"That's nice of him," her mother said, not seeming to share this view.

"Is it?" she complained, peeking back into the hall, wondering if she could still catch up with them. He was up to something. She knew it. It was the only thing that made any sense.

"_Katherine_," her mother said in a warning tone and she closed the door with a sigh, not sure what to do with herself now that the surgeon was gone again and they were left to wait for another week or two before he could give them more news.

She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep doing this. It was exhausting.

Her mother's voice softened when she saw how out of sorts she was. "Come sit down. Over here," she said, patting the mattress.

Kate crawled up into the space beside her, letting her head fall against her mother's. It reminded her of the times that she would come into her room to comfort her when she was growing up; she smiled when she lifted her arm to comb her fingers through her hair just like she used to.

"Now I know this isn't turning out the way you hoped, but blaming Dr. Shephard isn't going to change that," her mother told her and she felt a pang of shame at her behaviour. "He didn't give me this cancer."

She knew that what her mother was saying was true: it wasn't his fault; she wanted to agree, but as hard as she tried she couldn't seem to let go of her anger. "No, but he was _supposed_ to get rid of it," she argued.

"He said it himself, honey – he can't. No one can," her mother reminded her gently. "He could cut another piece out of me and it could still pop up somewhere else in a week, a month, a year..."

Kate couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What're you saying, Mom? You don't want the surgery?" she asked just in case she'd misinterpreted her mother's words.

"I'm tired, Katherine," her mother confessed after a long moment, and Kate could see that she was trying hard not to upset her. "I'm tired of doctors, tired of hospitals, tired of operations. I just want my life back. I just wanna go home."

"For how long?" she insisted, swallowing against the lump that was forming in her throat. She was giving up. How could she, after everything they'd been through? After she'd used up most of her savings to get them there? It couldn't all be for nothing.

"For however long I have," her mother agreed, covering her fingers with hers and squeezing with as much strength as she could muster. "Who knows? Maybe I'll even get to see my first grandchild." She smiled. "Wouldn't that be something? A little boy or girl with Katie's curls and freckles and Tommy's baby face?"

Kate tried to smile back, choking on a sob at the thought that that wasn't going to happen any time soon. She couldn't even remember the last time that she and Tom had been alone. The only time that she made it back to their motel room was to shower and change her clothes.

They were interrupted by a soft knock at the door.

Speak of the devil.

He was back sooner than she'd expected.

"I was just gonna take a walk," her fiancé told them, poking his head back into the room. "Could you come with me, Katie? There's something I need to tell you."

Was it just her or was he acting strange, refusing to meet her eyes?

"Go," her mother urged her when she shot her an uncertain look, dropping her hand with an encouraging nod. "We'll finish this later."

Kate placed a soft kiss against her forehead, watching her eyes close before going outside to meet Tom.

Her bad feeling grew when he didn't speak on the way to the lift, leading her out to the grounds where he sat on a bench, waiting for her to join him before beginning, "We've been together, what, twelve years now? That's a long time. Almost half our lives."

Already, she didn't like where his speech was headed. "So?" she insisted. Twelve years was good: solid, comfortable, dependable. What was wrong with those things?

"So haven't you ever wondered if you were making was a mistake by staying with me?" he asked her in what he must have thought was a reasonable tone, darting a nervous glance at her. "If there was someone else out there who was better suited to you?"

Oh God, it was true, she realised. He _was_ leaving her for another woman. This couldn't be happening. "Are you telling me you wanna break up?"

"We were so young, Katie. Just kids," he went on, his failure to argue assuring her that this was exactly what he was saying, and she could see that he was trying hard to convince her that it was the right thing for both of them. "I _thought_ I was in love with you, but what if it was just because I didn't wanna lose you? What if I only asked you to marry me because it was the next step?"

The same thought had occurred to her on occasion, but each time she'd dismissed it. She didn't want someone else. She didn't want to start all over again. What was new love compared to twenty years of shared history?

"That's just cold feet," she insisted. "Everyone goes through it."

"We've been engaged for three years and we haven't even set a date," he pointed out. "Does that sound like cold feet to you?"

"Because my mom—" she started to protest, but he cut her off.

"We agreed we didn't need a big wedding," he reminded her. "We could've gone to city hall and gotten it over and done with, but we didn't. Why?"

He had her there. She couldn't think of an answer that didn't back up what he'd said. They hadn't because they were prepared to wait. Because they _could_ wait.

Because they kept looking for excuses.

"You don't wanna get married any more than I do, Katie – not to me," he told her gently. "Deep down, I know you know that."

As soon as he said it, she knew that it was true. She could cope with his absences when he wasn't around; she remembered him when there was something that she wanted to tell him, but other times she forgot to think about him. That wasn't how love was supposed to work.

She could have let him off the hook by agreeing and kept their split amicable, but she needed proof that Jack Shephard was a liar. That what he'd told her had nothing to do with this. "Before, you mentioned someone else. Who is she?" she asked.

This seemed to catch him off guard and she wondered if he thought she believed that the question was rhetorical. She might have if the surgeon hadn't planted a seed of doubt in her mind. Why did he have to be so honest? Why couldn't he accept that there were some things people were better off not knowing?

"Her name is Rachel," he confessed after a long moment when he realised that he couldn't lie to her anymore.

Kate dropped her face into her hands, feeling sick on hearing it confirmed.

He was right. He'd tried to warn her and she wouldn't listen. He must think that she was so gullible and stupid now.

Her lack of response seemed to make Tom nervous. "Katie?" he said with a wary look, watching her carefully.

"Did you sleep with her? While we were together?" she pressed, lifting her head to look at him. If he hadn't then maybe she could still forgive him. She didn't think that she could blame him for falling for somebody else when she wasn't even sure that she was really in love with him.

He shifted on the bench, avoiding her eyes, and she knew what his answer was going to be.

"Did you sleep with her, Tom?" she insisted, her voice rising. "It's a simple enough question – yes or no?"

"She's pregnant," he agreed and she stared at him in shock. "We're getting married. That's why I came here, to tell you."

This was worse than anything that she could have expected; now that he had, she almost wished that she hadn't asked. She wasn't sure what hurt her more: his betrayal or the fact that it should have been her. She should be the one that he was starting a family with, not whoever this other woman was.

"You bastard," she spat, leaping to her feet, scrubbing at her eyes with the heel of her palm. She wasn't going to cry.

"Sit down, Katie, and let's talk about this," he pleaded, grabbing hold of her arm, but she snatched it back, not sure that she could stand to hear anymore.

"I'm really sorry," he told her. "I know I should've done this sooner, before things got so out of hand, but you're my best friend _–_ can't you just be happy for me?"

She didn't know how he thought that he could still call her that after what he'd done. She shook her head in disgust, fighting back bitter tears as she slapped him hard across the face.

"Then I hope you two have a nice life together," she told him, refusing to look back as she left him sitting alone, clutching his cheek.

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Next chapter: Jack finds Kate crying in the cafeteria and tells her a story that will help her understand why he is the way he is (and finally, a chapter that _doesn't_ end with her storming off)... ;)


	8. Chapter 8

Thanks for the reviews. As I said before, I'm very excited about this chapter. It's a turning point in Jack and Kate's relationship and my favourite so far, and I'm sure it will be most of yours too... ;)

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Chapter 8.

Jack was surprised to see Kate sitting alone at one of the corner tables when he went down to the cafeteria to pick up a sandwich later that evening. There was no sign of Tom; he knew that something must have happened when it hit him that she wasn't working on her scrapbook this time, staring off into space as she nursed an untouched cup of coffee.

As he moved close enough to see her expression, he realised that she'd been crying, her green eyes pink-rimmed and swollen, her freckled cheeks marked with fresh tears.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked her, struck by the urge to wipe them away as he was overcome with a sudden tenderness that stunned even him.

He had no reason to care about her but it pained him to see her looking so fragile and lost and he felt guilty for encouraging Tom to do something that would only make things worse for her.

Instead of looking up, she turned her head away, towards the wall, letting her dark curls fall across her face. Hiding. "Go away, Jack," she told him, her voice soft, broken.

Something about the way she said his name – his real name – made him think that this wasn't what she wanted; he slid into the booth across from her, watching her shift her gaze to her coffee cup, studying it with a morose look.

"I can't do this right now," she insisted, but for once she didn't seem to have the strength to put up a fight.

"I'm not asking you to do anything, I just thought you looked like you could do with some company," he agreed, reluctant to leave her until he knew what was bothering her and whether his own actions had had something to do with it.

She was silent for a long moment and then she said, "You were right," still without meeting his eyes.

"Right about what?" he pressed, his heart sinking at what he knew was coming.

"About Rachel. He confessed everything so I broke up with him," she told him, still in the same flat tone. "Happy?"

"No, Kate, I'm not," he assured her, forcing back the surge of anger that he felt at hearing that she thought he could be. He hadn't wanted to be right. He would have done anything to avoid watching her have her heart broken like that. "I know you'll probably find this hard to believe, but I don't get any satisfaction out of seeing you hurt."

She glanced up at him then, taken aback, and he knew that this wasn't the reaction she'd been expecting. "Well maybe you should," she argued. "I deserve it for being such a bitch."

He knew that she was only half kidding but he found himself letting out a wry chuckle at these words. He'd never really believed that about her, even when she was going out of her way to wound him. "You're not a bitch, Kate," he told her.

She smiled, a genuine smile, and he noticed, not for the first time, how beautiful she was.

"And you don't deserve it," he finished, causing the mood to turn serious again.

"I just feel so stupid, you know?" she confessed, tearing her gaze from his to watch the people trickling in and out. "Like I should've seen it coming."

"I didn't," he told her, succeeding in getting her to look at him again.

"You remember when we met, how you mentioned that surgery, the one everyone's calling a miracle?" he asked when she fixed him with a quizzical glance.

She nodded, riveted to the spot, and he could see that he was getting through to her.

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to continue. She needed to hear the rest of the story. It was the only way that she would ever understand. "Her name was Sarah, and she wasn't just a patient. I married her."

Her eyes widened with surprise and he watched them dart down to his left hand, checking for the ring that was no longer there. "What happened?"

All that time spent soul searching, begging her for an answer, and he still wasn't sure of that himself. The only thing that he knew for certain was that he'd failed.

"We grew apart," he told her because it was the simplest explanation. "She didn't like me spending so much time at the hospital. A few months after we were married she told me she was leaving me. She'd met someone. I never found out who he was."

Now that the words were out, he almost couldn't believe that he'd let her in on that chapter of his life. It wasn't something that he liked to talk about. It wasn't even something that he liked to think about.

She flashed him a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry," she said and he knew that she meant it. Maybe that was why he felt like he could open up to her about it. She didn't have to imagine what he'd been through.

"Me too," he agreed. "Last I heard they were getting married. That's why she pushed so hard for a divorce."

"Tom's getting married too," she confessed, twisting her engagement ring around her finger, and it was his turn to be shocked.

"Already? I thought you only just broke up?" He hadn't given him the impression that it was that serious when he spoke to him in the lift.

"Rachel's pregnant," she agreed, averting her eyes to keep him from seeing the tears forming there.

Too late.

He felt his heart go out to her as she added, "He _cheated on_ me and he's gonna have a wife and baby, and what've I got? A crappy job and a dying mom. I wasted so much time on him."

He didn't know what to say, how to make it better for her, so he decided to focus on the one thing that he could do something about.

He reached across the table and placed his hand over hers; she glanced up at him, surprised, but to his relief, she didn't pull away.

"I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that doesn't happen, Kate," he promised. If there was a way to save her mother, he would find it. "You have my word on that."

She rewarded him with a shy smile. "Thanks."

She cocked her head to the side as silence fell over them, giving him a thoughtful look. "I never would've figured you for such a good listener."

That had to be the nicest thing that she'd ever said to him. He grinned. "I'm just glad I could help."

She put the lid back on the paper coffee cup as she stood and he got to his feet too. "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" she said.

"Tomorrow," he agreed, already looking forward to it.

He was about to leave her to it when, without warning, she leant in and pressed her lips to his. They were so soft, the kiss so brief as they lingered there for what couldn't have been more than a few seconds that he was almost afraid that he'd dreamt it.

Before he could fully comprehend what was happening, it was over; she smiled as she drew back.

"What was that for?" he asked, dazed, finding it difficult to form a coherent thought. This morning she would barely give him the time of day and now she was kissing him?

"_That_ was for not saying 'I told you so'," she told him with a laugh as she dropped her cup into the trash and started for the door.

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Next chapter: Sam arrives and Kate reminds Jack of that dinner invitation... ;)


	9. Chapter 9

Thanks for the reviews. I'm so glad you all liked the last chapter and the new direction Jack and Kate's relationship is taking... ;)

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Chapter 9.

Kate's mind was working over time as she made her way back to her mother's room. She still couldn't believe that she'd kissed Jack Shephard. She wasn't sure what had come over her except that he was being so sweet and unJack-like that it was all she could think about.

This impulse was confusing enough in itself, but what made it worse was the fact that she'd _enjoyed_ it, more than she knew she should when she was still supposed to be reeling from her break up with Tom. She hadn't expected it to feel so good, so _right_.

She certainly hadn't expected to want to do it again.

She was so distracted by these thoughts that it took her a moment to realise that her mother wasn't alone; her heart leapt with relief and happiness when she registered the sight of a greying man in a military dress uniform sitting in the chair by the bed.

"There you are," her mother said when she glanced over at the door and saw that Kate had returned. A flicker of surprise passed over her features when she noticed that Tom was no longer with her, but she covered it with a wry smile. "Look who finally decided to stop by."

"Daddy! You're here!" Kate cried, hardly daring to believe her eyes as he met her halfway. He folded her into a fierce bear hug and she buried her face in his chest. "I've missed you so much." With him there, she didn't have to be the grown up. He could tell her what to do.

"My plane got in an hour ago so I took a cab straight over," he explained when he finally released her, stepping back so that he could look at her, his brow creasing with concern. "Are you okay, honey? You look like you've been crying."

She still hadn't figured out how she was going to break the news to her mother that the wedding was off when she was looking forward to seeing her married with a child of her own, and soon. She cursed herself for not remembering to check herself in the mirror and fix her make up after leaving the cafeteria. It was all _his_ fault for getting inside of her head like that.

"I'm fine," she assured him with a watery smile, deciding against making any announcements just yet. She would wait until her mother showed some sign of improvement and then she would tell them about Tom. "Just tired. It's been a long week."

* * *

They spent the rest of the evening catching up while her mother dozed beside them, her filling him in the prognosis and treatment options while he recounted his adventures in Iraq.

In light of the bombshell that her mother had dropped on her earlier, she was even gladder than usual to have him home: maybe he would be able to convince her to let Jack do the surgery, instead of giving up and going back to Cedar Rapids to die.

She didn't think that she could handle losing another person she loved: especially her mom. She still needed her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise you had visitors," Jack said with a guilty glance at her father the next morning when he came into the room to find her curled up at the head of the bed with her mother, going over some pictures that he'd brought back with him. "Would you like me to come back later?"

She could see that he was uncomfortable, though she couldn't be sure if it was because he felt like he was intruding, or because seeing the whole family together made it hard for him to maintain a clinical distance. He knew too much about them already. She still wasn't sure why she'd told him all of those things.

"Daddy, this is Ja—_Dr._ _Shephard_," she reminded herself, sliding off the edge of the mattress and moving back over to her own seat. "He's the spinal surgeon who's taking over mom's case."

She shifted her attention to Jack. "This is my dad, Sergeant Sam Austen of the Ranger Battalion," she finished, unable to conceal her pride at finally being able to show him off. He wasn't the only with a hero for a father.

"Thank you, Katie," her father said, his lips quirking with amusement at receiving such a grand introduction as he eyed her sidelong. "In that case, it's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Shephard." He got up and offered him his hand.

"Likewise," Jack agreed as he shook it. He glanced over at Kate with a meaningful smile. "I've heard a lot about you."

Something about the way that he was looking at her, his eyes searching hers, as though trying to read her thoughts, caused her to flush and shift her gaze to the linoleum at her feet. Was he mocking her? Did he think that she was some kind of pathetic, lonely charity case now just because she'd shared a few personal details with him and kissed him?

"I thought we'd get started on that radiology this afternoon if you think you're up to it," he told her mother, switching over into clinical mode, and she relaxed.

He'd caught her at a vulnerable moment, that was all. She just wanted to forget that it had ever happened so that they could get back to their working relationship. It didn't have to mean anything. Not unless they wanted it to…

"A more recent bone and CT scan should give us a better idea of the size of the tumour and its impact on the spinal cord."

"Whatever you think," her mother agreed with an unhappy sigh and Jack shot Kate a quizzical look that she pretended not to see. Why couldn't he just ask her for the answer?

"Great. I'll go make the arrangements," he said and she let out the breath that she was holding until he paused at the door. "Kate? Could I… see you for a moment?"

He was trying not to embarrass her. "Uh sure," she agreed, groaning inwardly as it occurred to her that he wanted to talk about what had happened. Couldn't he just let it go, like she had? It was nothing, a mistake. That was what she was going to tell him.

"What happened to Tom?" she heard her father whisper as she got up and followed him out into the hall. "I thought he and Katie were supposed to be getting married?"

"I don't know," her mother told him. "I can't keep up with that girl. First she swears she hates him then—"

Kate pulled the door shut before she could finish the thought, hoping that Jack wasn't listening. The last thing she needed was for him to convince himself that she had feelings for him now, when she didn't. She just didn't hate him as much as she had.

"Hi," he said with a nervous smile, and despite her resolve to be straight with him, she found her face betraying her when she smiled back.

Why did he have to be so damn cute, with his boyish grin and soulful puppy dog eyes? It made it so hard for her to resist. "Hi."

His expression changed as though remembering something; he reached into the pocket of his lab coat, producing a small, rectangular piece of paper. "I've been meaning to give this back to you," he said, holding it out to her. "You dropped it the other day."

This wasn't how she'd expected the conversation to go; she shot him a curious look as she took it, anger flooding through her when she saw that it was the picture of her and Tom on the swings as six year olds.

Jack's eyes widened with shock when, without stopping to consider what she was doing, she tore it in half, then half again, dumping the pieces unceremoniously into the nearest trashcan. She didn't need a reminder, and she sure as hell didn't need him.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish, huh?" she said as she returned to his side, when she caught his wary glance.

He relaxed when he saw that she wasn't mad at him for doing what he must have thought was the right thing. "You're not wearing your ring," he pointed out, his eyes landing on her left hand, which was now conspicuously bare. He must have seen it while she was ripping up the picture.

"I took it off," she agreed with a self-conscious smile.

She couldn't deny the fact that his story had helped her, enough to give her the courage to transfer it to the chain around her neck. It seemed strange to leave it on, even for her parents' sake, now that it was over. Part of her hoped that her mother _would_ notice so that she wouldn't have to go on pretending that everything was all right.

"I was gonna drive down to the beach and throw it in the Pacific, but why waste a perfectly good diamond?

"Now I'm thinking of selling it," she joked, knowing that she was only half serious. "That bastard took twelve years of my life – I should get something out of it, right?"

"Right," he agreed with a laugh.

"You seem like you're handling this pretty well," he told her a moment later when they both sobered.

"It's not like I have much of a choice," she confessed, sure that he of all people would get this. She was just doing what she had to to protect herself from any more pain. "He's moved on. I have to do the same thing."

He nodded and she felt better knowing that he understood. It was nice having someone that she could talk to, someone who knew what it was like.

"What'd you do with yours?" she asked, curious. While he'd only mentioned his divorce in passing, the way that he'd spoken about it gave her the impression that it had been hard for him to let go too.

"It's in a drawer somewhere," he confessed, looking sheepish as he added, "I couldn't make myself throw it out."

She shook her head with a titillated grin. How was it that they could both still care about people who'd cheated on and abandoned them? "We are _sad_," she mused aloud. "Whatever happened to wanting good old fashioned vengeance?"

"I wish it were that easy," he agreed with a genuine smile.

They stayed like that for a moment, smiling at each other, enjoying their newfound respect, until he cleared his throat. "I should probably get back to work," he told her, sounding reluctant to cut their conversation short, and she felt a pang of disappointment. Just when she was starting to like him. "I just wanted..." He gestured to the trashcan where she'd deposited the picture.

"Thanks," she agreed with a tight smile.

She watched him head for the lift, but just as he was about to get in, she couldn't help calling after him. "Wait!"

To her relief, he stopped, furrowing his brow in confusion as he turned back to her. "Is there something you needed, Kate?"

"I seem to remember you saying something about buying me dinner… you know, as a peace offering," she agreed, moving closer so that they wouldn't have to yell, her smile tentative, hopeful as she added, "Is it too late for me to take you up on that?"

His face lit up with surprise and she could see that he was pleased by the change in her attitude towards him. "I should be done around eight if you wanna meet me at the cafeteria then," he told her with a grin as he stepped inside and the doors slid shut behind him.

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Next chapter: Dinner (and maybe some Christian)... and in chapter 10: Kate and Sam talk about Jack... ;)


	10. Chapter 10

Thanks for the reviews. I'm glad you're all still enjoying this story... ;)

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Chapter 10.

When Jack finally made it down to the cafeteria at a quarter past eight, he was half convinced that Kate wouldn't be there, that she must have come to her senses by then, but to his relief he spotted her over at her usual booth, studying her watch.

She was freshly showered and dressed in the grey tank top that brought out the green in her eyes, her wet hair falling in waves over her shoulders; as he moved close enough to get her attention, he caught a whiff of her shampoo – something sweet and tangy, like passionfruit – and he found himself wondering if it was wrong of him to hope that she'd gone to all of that trouble for him.

"Hey," she said, glancing up at him in surprise when she sensed his presence beside her.

"Hey," he echoed, breaking into a grin when she did.

A flicker of tension passed between them, but while it was pleasant enough, he felt like they should be doing something more than staring at each other.

"So're you ready to…?" he asked to fill the silence, trailing off with an awkward gesture in the direction of the bistro.

"Sure," she agreed, getting up.

"How's your mom?" he asked her as they perused the menu board, embarrassed that he hadn't had the foresight to suggest something less casual. With what the hospital must be charging her, she had to know that he could afford it. She'd been living off cafeteria food for days and none of it was what he would call decent.

"She's okay. Better now that my dad's here," she told him, picking up a plastic container and inspecting its contents, her tone neutral, and he sensed that she didn't really believe this either.

"Really?" he probed gently, even though he knew that he was probably overstepping his bounds. He needed to be sure that she understood her mother's wishes, just in case he was forced to respect them. He couldn't make Diane have the operation and neither could Kate, no matter how much she wanted to. "Because I got the impression that she wasn't too happy about going in for more surgery."

He waited for her to lose her temper again, to tell him that this was none of his business, grateful when she didn't. Instead, she looked guilty.

"No one's _happy_ about getting surgery," she insisted as she replaced the container and moved on to the next, "but sometimes there's no other choice. You know that."

He could see that the conversation was agitating her so he decided to drop it for time being. He didn't even know if her mother's heart could sustain another surgery. He wouldn't until he ran some more tests.

"Don't tell me I put you off junk food with all that stuff I said the other day," he pretended to joke when she settled on a salad. He hadn't meant to embarrass her. If anything he was impressed that she wasn't overly concerned with her weight. There was nothing worse than watching a woman starve herself. He would never expect that of her. "Because you should know, I was just making conversation."

She shot him a titillated glance out of the corner of her eye. "I'm a vegetarian," she explained, and again he couldn't hide his surprise. That was another thing that he wouldn't have guessed about her, one in a long list that just kept getting longer.

"I guess I should probably put this back then, huh?" he teased her, waving the beef lasagne that he'd reached for on instinct.

"You can relax, Jack – I'm not gonna preach at you," she assured him with a laugh and he decided that it was fast becoming one of his favourite sounds. It seemed like the only times that he ever got to see her was when she was angry or depressed. It was nice to have her in a good mood for a change. "None of my family is. It's just something I kind of fell into on my own."

She smirked at him, her eyes twinkling with mischief. "Besides, if you saw how some of that stuff is prepared…"

She shifted her weight when they handed their purchases over at the counter, reaching for her purse with an uncertain look.

"I got it," he insisted, sliding a wad of bills from his wallet, hesitating when it struck him how sexist and presumptuous this might come off. It wasn't a date. He didn't want her to feel like it was. "Unless you're uncomfortable…" he rushed on in case she was afraid of offending him when he was the one who'd offered to buy her dinner in the first place.

"No, it's okay," she told him softly, her smile appreciative. "Thanks."

Satisfied that she didn't mind him playing the gentleman, he carried their tray back over to the table, returning her food to her with a thoughtful look.

"So you're a kindergarten teacher who works in a diner…?" he asked her, taking the lid off of his.

"This is the part where you tell me I'm wasting my life, right?" she said, sneaking a glance at him as she got organised, opening the container, ripping the top off the little sachet of dressing, arranging her cutlery…

He watched her go through the process, fascinated. He would never have picked her as being that methodical.

"Well you'll have to get in line – my dad says the same thing."

"No, I'm just curious," he explained. "Why didn't you try to get a job after college?"

She looked surprised at this question, as though it wasn't something that she'd given much thought.

"Honestly?" she said after a long moment, and he could see her choosing her next words carefully, trying to justify this decision not just to him, but to herself. "I guess I figured Tom and I would get married as soon as he finished med school, so it didn't seem like there was much point.

"He used to say we'd have nine kids," she finished, her expression wishful, though whether for her former fiancé or that life he couldn't tell.

"Nine?" he repeated, cocking his brow, trying to imagine what that would be like. As much as he wanted to be a father himself, it sounded like a few too many. "I think I'd settle for one."

He watched her take this new information in without comment and he could see that she wanted to ask why he'd never gotten around to starting a family with his wife, but she seemed to know better than to push the point.

"Yeah," she agreed with a grimace, poking at a shred of lettuce.

"Then my mom got sick and I had to put everything on hold to take care of her. And now, well—" She let out a harsh laugh "—I was right about Tom getting married – just not to me."

Her movements increased in fury as she speared a cherry tomato with her fork. "It's a shame, because I would've made a good wife. I think I know almost as much about medicine as he does just from grilling him the night before finals."

He could feel his own sense of outrage returning as he thought again of everything that her childhood sweetheart had given up in her. He couldn't imagine Sarah ever being that supportive of his career, even in the early days of their relationship. Unlike Tom, he would have appreciated it.

"Do you think you'll ever go back to it? Teaching?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she confessed, shaking her head. "It's hard for me to think ahead at the moment. I'm just trying to take it all one day at a time."

"I meant what I said yesterday, Kate," he assured her, when she returned her gaze to her food. "I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure your mom gets better."

He smiled when this got her to look up at him, her eyes alight with a mixture of hope and gratitude. "Then maybe I could take you out for a real dinner to celebrate."

"You can count on it," she agreed.

* * *

"So I guess you'll be going home now?" she asked once they'd finished eating.

He couldn't help letting out a self-deprecating laugh at this. _Home_ was an empty apartment. He tried to spend as little time there as possible.

"I wish. I've still got a stack of labs to get through," he told her. He wasn't in any hurry to cut the evening short; he reached a hand up to run his fingers through his hair, more embarrassed than he should be as he added, "I'm heading upstairs if you'd like me to walk you back to your mom's room."

"Only if it's not too far out of your way," she argued, but she looked pleased.

Without thinking, he allowed his palm to drift to the small of her back to lead her, emboldened when she made no attempt to remove it. "No, come on, I insist."

He kept it there until they reached the lift, dropping it as he followed her into it.

"I'm glad we did this," she confessed with a shy smile when they stopped in the hall outside. "I had a good time tonight."

"Me too," he admitted, his eyes straying to her lips, wondering if he should try to kiss her. He might have if he could be sure that it was what she wanted.

He wasn't sure if he was just imagining it, but he thought that she seemed disappointed when moments passed and nothing happened, offering her hand to him instead.

"So, truce?"

He took it in his, holding it for longer than he needed to. "Truce," he repeated as he let go.

"Night," she told him, flashing him a flirtatious grin, opening the door and slipping inside.

* * *

Despite his resolve to avoid another attachment, he couldn't deny that he was falling for her. He had to find a way to keep his promise to her; he was in his office, going over her mother's scans, when a sharp rap disturbed him.

Thinking that she must have come looking for him, he closed the file. "Come in," he called, pinching the bridge of his nose, his heart sinking when he glanced up and saw that it wasn't Kate who entered.

"I'm glad I caught you," his father said, closing the door behind him, his expression grave. "Son, we need to talk."

Something about the way he said it set Jack on edge. His relationship with his father was complicated at best; he couldn't remember the last time that he'd sought him out like this. "What's going on, Dad? Is Mom okay?" he asked, pushing himself to his feet.

"Your mother's fine, Jack," his father assured him. "It's you I'm worried about."

When Jack let out a heavy sigh, waiting for his father to clue him in on what he'd done wrong this time, he explained, "One of the nurses informed me that she saw you having dinner with Diane Austen's daughter earlier tonight."

"So what if I did?" he insisted, defensive at the idea that his father thought the only way to keep tabs on him was to send his employees to spy on his behalf. Why was it that he never _asked_? "I don't understand what this has to do with—"

"Don't you see how it could be considered inappropriate, given your… history?" he continued in the same reasonable tone.

"My _history_?" Jack repeated, incensed that he would rather make insinuations than get whatever was bothering him out in the open. No wonder he valued the truth so much. It was a rare commodity in his family.

"Sarah? Dad, is that what this is about? Or do you honestly think I'd ask for some kind of favour from her in exchange for saving her mom's life?"

His father recoiled in shock at these words and he could see that he'd hurt him. "Of course not, Jack!" he insisted. "I'm just suggesting that you try to maintain a professional distance this time. Need I remind you of what happened with Mr. Busoni?"

He softened when Jack sank back into his chair, running his hands over his face. He really didn't. All of a sudden he was relieved that he hadn't kissed Kate. He didn't want to make another mistake like that.

"I just don't want to see you get hurt again, Jack."

"I've learnt my lesson, Dad, believe me," he assured him, even though he wasn't sure that he had, more confused about his relationship with Kate than ever.

She was his patient's daughter; he shouldn't be having these feelings for her, but he couldn't seem to stop them. At least when she was with Tom he had a reason to ignore them.

"I know where the line is and I'm not about to cross it again. Kate's just going through a rough patch and I was helping her out. That's as far as it goes. That's as far as it _can_ go."

* * *

Next chapter: Kate and Sam talk about Jack, and Kate calls Jack on his strange behaviour... ;)


	11. Chapter 11

Thanks for the reviews. You guys know me too well by now... ;)

* * *

Chapter 11.

Kate's mother was asleep when she let herself back into the room. "How is she?" she asked, putting her purse down and taking the seat across from her father's.

"She's good," he agreed, glancing up at her, his expression curious. "We were wondering about you before... Where did you disappear to in such a hurry?"

While she knew that there was no reason to be ashamed of her dinner with Jack – they were both single, consenting adults – something prevented her from telling him the whole truth. "Just downstairs to get something to eat," she explained with a casual shrug, hoping that this would be enough to satisfy him.

"You could've brought it back here," he told her, and she felt a pang of guilt, knowing how much he must have hated the idea of her sitting all alone in the cafeteria, brooding.

"I just needed to get out for a while, clear my head, you know?" she agreed.

She meant to reassure him, but this just seemed to worry him even more.

"Your mom tells me you've been doing that a lot," he said, and as his blue eyes held her green ones she could see the concern there. "What about you? How're you doing?"

His question took her by surprise, making her feel even worse, because tonight, in the midst of everything else that was happening, she was happier than she had been in a long time.

"Me?" she repeated, forcing a bright smile. "I'm fine."

"And how is Tom?" he pressed when she didn't offer him anything more specific, and she could tell that he didn't believe her. Why would he? Her mother was dying. She shouldn't be having fun. "Your mom says he was here but then he had to go back home?"

"Tom's fine too, Dad," she assured him, eager to move on to a new, less sensitive subject. Her parents liked him; she still wasn't sure how she was going to shatter their illusions of him. "Something just… came up."

She thought that that might be the end of it, but it was clear that he wasn't ready to let it go just yet.

"Katie…" he insisted, his tone wary, and she knew that he knew she was lying.

"He left because I asked him to," she confessed after a long moment, avoiding her eyes, staring down at her hands, fidgeting in her lap. "Because we broke up. It's not really something I wanna get into," she finished before he could ask her why. She didn't want him to know how stupid and naïve she'd been.

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," he said softly, sincerely. "Is that why you were gone so long?"

"No, I ran into Jack… Dr. Shephard," she confessed, correcting herself with an uncomfortable laugh, hoping that he hadn't noticed, "and we had dinner together."

"Jack?" he repeated and she cringed as she realised what was coming. "Katie, are you sure it's a good idea for you to be spending so much time with him?"

She could see where he was coming from – he _was_ her mother's doctor – but it didn't have to be a big deal. "Why not? It was just dinner, Daddy – it's not like we're having sex," she teased him.

She couldn't have been more wrong in her initial assessment of Jack. He'd been nothing but a gentleman the entire time she was with him, from paying for her meal, to carrying everything, to escorting her back to her mother's room.

He hadn't even tried to kiss her then, no matter how much she wanted him to, no matter how much she wished that he had. She could still remember what his lips felt like from the brief one that she'd snuck in the cafeteria; the shiver that ran down her spine. It wasn't something that she'd experienced before, with Tom.

Her father's face turned beet red with embarrassment; he raised his eyebrow at her when he recovered and she could see that he wasn't convinced.

"I am not sleeping with him," she insisted, shooting him an incredulous look, "and I'm not about to either. We're just friends."

"Well make sure you keep it that way," he told her, relenting when he seemed to decide that she was being honest with him this time.

Even if she wasn't, at least where the last parts were concerned.

"This situation is complicated enough without you adding all those feelings in," he added more gently. "I know it sounds harsh, but I just don't wanna see you get hurt."

* * *

Even though she'd resigned herself to keeping her relationship with Jack platonic – at least for the time being – Kate couldn't help looking forward to his next visit.

She waited all through the next morning for him to find some excuse to talk to her, like he always did but when by evening, he'd failed to put in one of his now daily appearances, she began to worry.

What if he'd only pretended to have a good time? What if he thought that she was too damaged, too needy; too much of a small town girl for him? What if he'd lost interest?

What if he was avoiding her?

She decided that the only way to find out for sure was to seek him out in his office. If nothing else, at least it would help her to understand where she stood with him.

"Kate," he said, dropping his pen and scratching the back of his neck when she poked her head inside. "What're you doing here?"

She knew then that her instincts were correct. He wasn't happy to see her.

"I haven't seen you all day," she pointed out, stepping inside and closing the door, the words coming out more accusing than she'd intended. "I thought you were gonna come by with my mom's test results?"

"Yeah. Sorry," he agreed, returning to whatever he was writing without bothering to offer an explanation. "Tell her I'll check in with her first thing tomorrow."

His tone was so cool, so disinterested that she couldn't help being hurt by it. He was acting as though they were strangers, as though she was the one who was out of line just by being there.

"I brought you a sandwich," she tried again, moving closer.

A flicker of some emotion that she couldn't place passed over his features as he paused. "Thanks. You can just leave it on the desk," he told her, still without tearing his eyes from the page.

"I was hoping we could eat together…" she continued, trying to get him to acknowledge her.

He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "I told you, Kate, I've got a lot of work to catch up on. I can't neglect my other cases."

He sounded almost angry with her, though she couldn't imagine what he thought she'd done to deserve it. Maybe she wasn't so wrong after all and he _had_ expected her to go to bed with him.

"Okay, what is going on with you?" she insisted, snatching the pen out of his hand so that he would have to deal with her.

"What d'you mean?" he asked, sounding taken aback, but she caught his guilty expression and she was certain that he understood what she was talking about.

"I mean, you haven't looked at me _once_ the whole time I've been here," she complained, folding her arms, fixing him with her sternest glare, for all the good it would do. "Clearly something happened after last night – I wanna know what."

When he swallowed hard but didn't answer, she softened towards him, letting him see how wounded she was by his distant behaviour. "Talk to me, Jack, _please_."

At this, his stony demeanour changed; he dropped his head into his hands, massaging his brow with his fingers. "You know my dad is the chief of surgery here?" he asked after a long moment.

"Yeah," she agreed, relieved that they were getting somewhere. She sank into the chair on the other side of his desk. "Did he say something to you? About us?"

She didn't realise how this sounded until he snuck at glance at her out of the corner of his eyes, giving her a tiny half smile.

"He thinks me… hanging out… with you is unprofessional," he confessed with a bitter laugh, and when he finally met her gaze she could see how conflicted he was. "In fact, he advised me against it."

A surge of anger flooded through her as she considered this. Why couldn't anyone trust them? Why did everyone feel the need to interfere? "Well, Jack, you're a little too old for him to be picking your friends."

He blinked at her in astonishment. "You think we're friends?" he asked.

"Don't you?" she agreed with a smile.

He rewarded her with a broad grin and they fell into a companionable silence as he went back to finishing what he was doing.

It was only then, as she watched him, that she saw the name on the radiology print out spread out in front of him.

"These are my mom's?" she checked, surprised after the crack he'd made about needing to focus on his other cases.

"That's her spine," he explained, tracing it with the end of his pen, "and that shadow there–" He circled it "—that's the tumour. See, it's not too big at this stage."

Her heart sunk at seeing it there in black and white. It looked so ugly and… real. "Do you think you can get rid of it?" she pressed, glad that she hadn't gotten a second opinion. He was a good doctor and most of all, a good friend.

"Yeah, I think so," he agreed, flashing her a reassuring smile.

He slid them back inside the file with his notes and closed it. "You said something about a sandwich?" he reminded her, stretching and settling back in his chair.

She grinned, reaching into her purse. "I hope tuna and cream cheese is okay with you…"

* * *

Next chapter: Jack and Kate continue to hang out as "friends" as he finishes his tests, and a date for the surgery is set...  
Then in chapter 13: Kate discovers a shocking family secret... ;)


	12. Chapter 12

Thanks for the reviews. I know I said that there would be more on Diane's surgery this chapter, but I don't think any of you will mind that I decided to fill it with Jate instead... ;)

* * *

Chapter 12.

"Let's go somewhere," Kate suggested.

She had stopped by Jack's office like she did every evening now so that they could eat together without anyone reporting back to his father, but tonight her hands were empty.

"Don't you think that's pushing it a little?" he asked her, uncomfortable with the idea of taking their relationship – however innocent – outside of the hospital while he was still supposed to be treating her mother. "What if someone sees us?"

If his father thought that having dinner with her in the cafeteria was unprofessional, he could only imagine what he would say if he heard that they'd been out on a kind of date.

"Come on, Jack," she pleaded, giving him her best puppy dog eyes. "I've been here for weeks and so far the only part of L.A. I've seen besides the airport is this hospital."

He knew that he shouldn't – he could just tell her that he had too much work – but how was he expected to resist with her looking at him like that, so excited and hopeful?

"I guess we could go for a drive…" he agreed.

She perked up before he'd even finished getting the words out, not seeming to care what they did as long as it wasn't in his office. He couldn't blame her for getting cabin fever: when she wasn't there with him, she was in her mother's room, or her own motel room across the street. "That's the spirit."

She dropped into the chair across from him, watching him finish typing up the report that he was writing with an air of impatience. "Are you almost done here?"

He could see that she was eager to moving. It had been so long since he'd had anyone but Marc to encourage him to take a break; in a moment of decisiveness, he shut down the file, grinning as he switched off his computer. He deserved a night off and so did she.

"Not even close, but let me get my coat and we'll go."

She waited for him to get organized, following him out into the hall so that he could lock the door.

"You don't need to tell your parents?" he checked, as an afterthought, as they made their way down to the garage.

She glanced away from him, studying one of the prints on the wall and he wondered briefly where they thought she was going when she came to see him. The last thing he wanted was for them to believe that he was taking advantage of their daughter and the power that he held over her. That wasn't that kind of impression he wanted to make, either as a doctor or a potential suitor.

Especially when her father owned a gun. Probably several.

"No, it's okay, I've got my cell," she assured him, patting her purse, and he shook off his unease as she turned back to him with a bright smile.

She was a grown woman. Whatever information she chose to give them was out of courtesy. It was none of their business… theirs _or_ his father's.

* * *

"This place is huge," Kate announced, sitting up straighter in the passenger seat so that she could get a better look at the beach as they cruised along in his beat up old sedan.

"I never really thought about it," Jack confessed with a wry smile, sneaking a sidelong glance at her.

So far, it wasn't anything that he hadn't seen before – a million times – but what made it new was watching her reactions to everything, the way her expression changed under the streetlamps, lighting up each time she recognised something and had to lean over to point it out to him, the ocean breeze ruffling her hair.

She was so beautiful without even having to try.

"Yeah, well it's no Cedar Rapids, that's for sure," she reminded him, and he returned his eyes to the road before she could catch him staring at her.

"Do you miss it? Home?" he asked her. He knew that she would have to go back there eventually, but right now he was trying not to think about that.

"I know it probably sounds strange," she told him, her smile sad, "but aside from Tom, my mom was always the one constant in my life, so I guess home is wherever she is."

At this, he felt the knot in his insides twist a little tighter. Now that he'd had time to get to know her, he couldn't bear the thought of messing up, of failing her. He didn't think that he would ever be able to forgive himself, and his biggest fear was that she wouldn't be able to forgive him.

"What about your dad?" he insisted, to keep his mind from dwelling too much on this. "I thought you were close?"

"We are," she agreed, "but he wasn't around much when I was growing up. He was always off on active duty somewhere. Most of the time it was just Mom and me."

"Sounds nice," he told her, wistful as he tried to envision what it must have been like to grow up without the constant threat of disappointing someone. He wouldn't have minded it if his own father had decided to spend a few months out of the year overseas.

"What about you and your dad?" she pressed, turning her full attention back on him as she seemed to pick up on his unhappiness. "I get the impression things weren't quite as good for you at home."

"We get along alright – as long as I do what I'm told," he admitted.

When he met her eyes again, he could see guilty she looked.

"Listen, I'm sorry if this is causing problems between you," she said softly, but he cut her off before she could finish apologising for something that really wasn't her fault.

"Don't be," he told her sincerely, fixing her with a reassuring smile. "Those problems were there long before you got involved."

Already he could feel his carefree mood evaporating. "Let's not talk about him anymore," he insisted, determined to enjoy himself and worry about his father later. "This is your first night out in L.A. – I think we should just concentrate on having a good time."

* * *

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Kate said a while later as they sat at the bar.

After spending an hour circling the city they had stopped to get something to eat and ended up staying on, neither of them in any hurry to get back to their lives.

Jack didn't know when he would get the chance to be alone with her like this again; he was determined to savour the evening.

"Sure," he agreed, though he could feel himself growing apprehensive as he sensed what was coming. He tried to keep their conversations limited to her: her family, Tom, college, Iowa; it was only natural that sooner or later she would want to know something about him.

"How come you and your wife never had any kids?"

While he had expected her to ask about Sarah, he hadn't expected her to go there so soon. She didn't waste any time.

"Well, for starters, we weren't married that long," he confessed, feeling that he owed it to her to be honest after everything she'd confided in him.

"How long's not long?" she pressed, trying to sound casual as she took another sip of her drink.

She'd known Tom for twenty-one years. She was with him for twelve; engaged to him for three. Suddenly he felt embarrassed about comparing their situations. They weren't the same at all: at least that was how he was afraid that she would see it.

"A couple of months."

"Ouch," she said with a sympathetic wince. "I hope you don't mind me saying it, but your wife – Sarah? – sounds like a bitch."

He stared at her in shock; he knew that he shouldn't find her assessment of his ex wife so amusing but he could feel the corners of his lips twitch as she smirked at him.

"What makes you think that?" he asked her.

She cocked a dubious eyebrow, her expression telling him that this should be obvious. At least it was to her. "You saved her life and she left you for another guy a couple of months into the marriage? If it was me…"

A pink flush crept into her cheeks when he shot her a challenging look and she trailed off, shrugging, her smile slightly awkward as she finished, "I'm just saying, it sounds like you're better off without her."

* * *

Kate left Jack to go to the bathroom some time after that; he was wondering what was taking her so long when he heard a man's drunken slur behind him.

"Where's the fire, beautiful? Why don't you sit down, have a drink?" Somehow by drawing out each of the syllables he managed to make the last part sound like an innuendo.

Some poor woman was getting picked up, probably against her will, Jack noted with disgust; it wasn't until the man raised his voice and he turned around that he realised it was Kate who was the target of his unwanted attention.

"Hey, bitch, I was talkin' to you!"

"Look, I'm not interested, okay?" she retorted, trying to move past him; on seeing the man's arm shoot out to grab her wrist, Jack felt a surge of fury flood through him.

"Get your hands off her!" he cried, pushing through the crowd.

He watched her relief at seeing him turn to fear as, with a defiant look, the man tightened his grip on her, pulling her closer, enough that she flinched at the reek of alcohol on his breath.

"Hey! Let got of me!"

Jack tried to convince himself that he was only doing what he would for any woman, especially one that he felt responsible for, but he knew that it was more than that.

He was jealous. He couldn't stand seeing another man, intoxicated or not, eye her like that.

"I said, don't touch her!" he insisted, driving his fist into the man's face when, despite her attempts to free herself, he still didn't release her.

He stumbled backwards into a chair, clutching his jaw, and Kate seized the opportunity to retreat back a few steps, into the protection of the gathering crowd.

His blood pounding in his ears, Jack turned in a slow circle, taking in their expressions – some shocked, some amused – embarrassed at having caused a scene. He hadn't meant to lose his temper that. He just hoped that he hadn't damaged their relationship; that she would understand.

"Sorry about that, man," another man piped up, flustered as he rushed forward to pick his friend up. "I'm sure he just didn't know she was your girlfriend."

He shot Kate a penitent look as she stood there glaring at both of them, rubbing her wrist as if to rid herself of the feeling of the drunk man's fingers there. "He didn't mean anything by it, I swear."

She waited until he hauled him off in the direction of the cab rank to approach Jack, her colour slowly returning.

"You okay?" he asked her, finding it difficult to look at her as he wondered what she was thinking.

She nodded, the corners of her mouth lifting into a tiny smile. "Yeah," she agreed.

He didn't wait for her to say anything else, slipping a possessive arm around her waist in case anyone else hadn't gotten the message.

"Let's go," he said, pulling her along with him, towards the exit.

"Now?!" she insisted over the music, sneaking a glimpse at her watch. "It's only ten-thirty."

He knew that she was right, that the night was still young, but he didn't trust himself not to react that way again, not stopping until they were back out on the street.

When he finally paused to let his breathing return to normal, he caught her staring at him in horror, and for a moment, he was afraid that he had freaked her out, until he followed her gaze.

"Your hand, Jack... It's bleeding."

Sure enough, he saw that his knuckles were streaked with crimson, though whether the blood was his own or that of the man he'd struck he couldn't tell.

"It's nothing," he insisted, shoving it behind his back.

"It doesn't look like nothing," she argued, her voice and eyes firm as she held out her own hands.

The truth was, it didn't _feel_ like nothing either.

"Give it to me. Come on," she coaxed him, taking it gently in hers when he finally conceded.

She let out a sympathetic hiss, grimacing as she wiped it with a Kleenex she found in her purse, exposing the raw marks underneath. "We have to get this cleaned up or it's gonna get infected and then how're you gonna work?"

"Kate—" he complained, just wanting to forget the whole incident, but it was clear that she'd already made up her mind.

"Don't argue with me, okay? Just let me help you."

She dragged him to the 7/11 across the street where they managed to find bandaids and a small tube of antiseptic.

The only problem was that they were out of the standard, grown up variety; she regarded him with an impish grin as she picked out a box with tiny _Batman_ logos on them, taking them up to the counter before he could voice his protest.

"You're kind of like my Dark Knight, you know," she mused aloud to distract him once they were seated on the bench outside, her holding his hand in her lap as she applied the cream. "Telling me about Tom, saving my mom—" She laughed, shooting a glance at him out of the corner of her eye "—defending my honour back there"

He smiled, then found himself laughing too, relieved that she wasn't mad. "I'm sorry you had to see that," he told her, wincing as it began to do sink in. "I'm not sure what came over me."

He decided that he didn't mind being babied by her as much he'd thought he would when she blew on his knuckles to quell the sting, the warmth of her breath on his skin sending a pleasant tingle up his arm.

"Well whatever it was, I should thank you," she said, sticking the bandaids down over the top to finish the job. "No one's ever punched a guy for me before."

Her eyes held his for a long moment, as though she wanted to say something more, and then to his surprise, she raised his injured hand to her lips, kissing the back of it softly. "Better?"

A slow grin spread over his face and she grinned in return when he agreed. "Yeah." He closed his own fingers, wrapping them more tightly around hers. "Much."

* * *

Next chapter: The verdict on the surgery and, as promised, Kate discovers a shocking family secret that will change her life forever... ;)


	13. Chapter 13

Thanks for the reviews. I'm so glad you all enjoyed the last chapter so much, especially the _Batman_ bandaids. While the reference was obviously intentional, the link to the movie unconscious -- I wasn't even thinking about it at the time that I wrote it. I just think Batman is way cooler and more befitting of Jack than Superman, with his angsty back story and lack of actual superpowers... ;)

* * *

Chapter 13.

"Blood count, electrolyte and blood sugar levels, kidney and liver function… everything looks fine," Jack told them with a reassuring smile when he finished reading over Kate's mother's chart the next morning.

He had exchanged the _Batman_ bandaids for a plain white bandage, Kate noticed, shooting a glance at his knuckles and cocking her eyebrow at him from where she sat on the opposite side of the bed. She'd never expected him to leave them on. He was too self-conscious and uptight for that.

He let out a low chuckle, biting back a grin, his gaze darting back to the clipboard before her parents could catch the looks that they were giving each other. She still hadn't told them about what happened in the bar, or even that she'd left the hospital with him.

It was their little secret, and she liked it that way.

He checked her mother's heart rate, then her blood pressure, making notations on the clipboard, careful not to catch her eye again as he put the cuff down.

While she knew that her presence was distracting to him, just as his was to her, she wanted to hear what he had to say so she shifted her own attention to the cuticle on her index finger, picking at it with her thumbnail as she listened.

"Since your general health isn't too bad, I'd like to move the surgery forward to as soon as possible," he announced, and the next time Kate looked up, to check her mother's reaction, she saw how unhappy she was with this idea. "If we go in now, the chances of us getting it all are pretty good."

"But I won't be _cured_," her mother insisted. "You said that yourself."

"No," Jack agreed, his tone solemn, regretful as he shot a guilty glance in Kate's direction. "You won't."

Once, she would have resented him for these words, but she knew better than that now: they were his way of sparing them all the pain of holding out for a miracle that he didn't believe they would get. He wasn't trying to hurt her.

Just the opposite.

"Then why waste your time? What's the point?" her mother argued and Kate stared at her, open mouthed. She couldn't be serious. Did she actually _want_ to die?

She dropped her head into her hands, summoning all of her willpower to keep herself from letting her anger loose. How could she even think like that? She had no right.

"_The point_," Jack reminded her, his voice gentle but firm, and Kate could have kissed him right then, in front of her parents, "is that we might still be able to prevent you from developing another tumour, which could give you at least an extra year with your family."

"Are you sure you're in any condition to operate?" her father piped up, crossing his arms, his eyes wandering down to the bandage around Jack's knuckles. "What'd you do to your hand, son?"

"Yeah," Kate repeated, struggling to suppress her grin at the helpless look he gave her.

"What'd you do to your hand, Dr. Shephard?" she teased him with a smirk, aware that the last thing he wanted to do was admit to her parents that he'd gotten into a bar fight, even if it was only by defending her.

"Oh, you know… just a… kitchen accident," he lied, narrowing his eyes at her he saw that she wasn't going to come to his rescue. "It should be okay in a day or so."

To Kate's relief, this seemed to be enough for her father. "So how soon do you think can you do the surgery?" he pressed.

"The day after tomorrow," Jack told him, and Kate felt a mixture of nervousness and excitement.

In a few days, it could all be over. In a few days, her mom's tumour could be gone and she could be free to see him without the threat of destroying his reputation.

It was liberating and yet somehow terrifying. She wasn't even sure that she knew how to be with anyone but Tom. It wasn't like she'd had a lot of practice.

"I wish I could give you more time to decide," Jack continued, his smile apologetic, and she wondered if the same thought had occurred to him too, "but after that, I'm booked solid until the end of next week."

He fixed her mother with an expectant look. "It's your call…"

For one heart stopping, Kate was afraid that she would say no, that she would demand to be discharged so that she could go home to live out the rest of her days in peace.

It would solve the problem of what to do about her relationship with Jack, but that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted her to get better. "Please, Mom?"

Her mother was silent at first, glancing over at her father, who nodded. "Fine," she agreed, seeing that she was out numbered three to one, rolling her eyes and huffing out an exaggerated sigh, but she fixed Kate with a tiny smile. "Go ahead and pencil me in."

* * *

"You nervous?" Kate asked Jack.

It was the afternoon before her mother's operation and they were eating lunch together at his desk while she put the final touches on her scrapbook.

He didn't have a bad eye for it—for a guy, she decided, surveying the page in front of her. While most of the time he just watched her, intrigued by the history behind each of the pictures, occasionally helping with the cutting, he wasn't above making suggestions about where she should put things.

She enjoyed listening to his opinions, not just about what she was doing, but about anything. The hours she was able to spend with him – even just sitting in his office – were always the best part of her day.

"Are you kidding?" he said, taking a sip of his coffee, his smile a little too bright, a little _too_ reassuring. "I must've done a hundred of these surgeries by now."

"You know you don't have to lie just to make me feel better," she told him, shooting a glance at him out of the corner of her eye as she began gluing everything down. "I won't hold it against you if you are."

She couldn't hide her admiration as she added, smiling at him, "I can't imagine doing what you do."

He seemed to relax then, letting down the front that he'd put up for her benefit. "Okay, a little," he agreed, "but it's gonna be fine."

He reached across the desk, laying his palm over the back of her hand, his voice low and husky. "I won't let anything happen to her."

She turned it over, grasping his fingers in hers, and they both stared down at them as she stroked his rough skin with her thumb, taking advantage of the brief moment of contact.

She was glad that her mother's surgery was less than twenty-four hours away because she didn't know how much longer they could keep up this pretence. She didn't want to be just his friend. She wanted so much more than that.

"So the big question is, are you gonna have this done in time?" he asked, clearing his throat, withdrawing his hand to break the tension between them.

"I think so," she agreed, grateful for the distraction. A few seconds longer and she would have had to try kissing him again. "I just might have to cut a few corners. I'll probably be up all night finishing it as it is."

She rummaged around inside the box, searching for a picture small enough to fill the space at the top of the page, frowning when she caught sight of the inscription on the back of an old Polaroid:

_Seoul, South Korea._ _Christmas Eve, 1976. _

"That can't be right," she murmured. Whoever wrote it must have gotten the date wrong. Surely they meant 197_5_?

"What can't be right?" Jack checked, glancing up at her. "Kate?"

"Oh… nothing. It's probably nothing," she assured him, not sure how to explain it to him when she couldn't even begin to understand it herself. It was a mistake. It had to be.

"Are you okay?" Jack pressed, frowning at her. "You're really pale."

"Yeah, I just..." She jumped up from her chair, still clutching the picture, the others forgotten along with the rest of scrapbook.

"There's something I need to do," she told him, "but I'll see you later, okay?"

She raced for the door before he could answer, leaving him staring, bewildered, after her.

* * *

"Hey, watch it there, Katie – your mom's trying to sleep," her father complained, tearing his eyes from his book when she stormed into her mother's room, but she was beyond feeling guilty: all she cared about was the truth.

"Is something wrong?" he checked, studying her expression, seeming to sense her dark mood.

"What's this?" she demanded, thrusting the Polaroid at him.

He examined the image – himself with a bunch of his old army buddies, dressing in combat fatigues – his brow creasing with confusion. "I don't understand—"

"On the back," she insisted. "The date."

Her mother would have been three months pregnant with her. They'd always told her that he was on leave then; that that was why they'd decided to have her when they did.

That was why she didn't have any brothers and sisters, her father had said: because he didn't want to miss out on his children's lives. It was hard enough being away from her.

Now she wondered how much of this was true.

"Where did you get this?" he asked when he turned it over and saw what had disturbed her.

"It doesn't matter. I want you to explain it to me," she told him.

She had hoped that he would dismiss it outright, but when he didn't even try, she felt sick for her stomach.

"I will," he agreed with a heavy sigh, "but not here. Your mom doesn't need this right now."

It took all of her strength to hold her tongue as they made their way to the lift, across the street to the motel.

"We're alone, she can't hear us," she insisted as soon as the door was shut behind them. "Now why does this say you were in _Korea_ for Christmas when you told me you were at home with Mom?"

"Why don't you sit down?" her father said, gesturing to the bed, but she folded her arms, remaining standing.

"Would you please just answer the question?"

It felt like an eternity before he finally spoke, his eyes fixed at some point on the wall behind her. "Because I was," he admitted softly. "I was there for almost a year. I got back the day after Valentine's Day."

She was born in June, four months later. He'd been out of the country for _seven months_ at the time that she would've had to have been conceived.

"Oh God," she managed to choke out as this sunk in, torn as to whether or not she wanted to hear the rest of the story.

She felt as thought the solid, comfortable world that she'd come to depend had been pulled out from underneath her in the space of a few weeks. She thought she at least knew who she was, who to trust, who to love, but now all that was changing. Tom was a cheat, her mother was a liar and her dad – her hero – wasn't really her dad at all.

"Were you ever gonna tell me?"

"I never wanted you to find out," he confessed, and when she forced herself to look at him, she saw that there were tears in his eyes.

"Who was he?" she pressed, glad now that she hadn't told him about Rachel. Maybe he could find it in his heart to forgive a betrayal like that, but she knew that she couldn't.

"Katie—"

"I wanna know who my father is," she insisted, noting with a bitter sense of satisfaction how deeply these words seemed to cut him.

"His name is Wayne – Wayne Jansen," he told her, "and you don't wanna meet him, trust me."

"You're asking me to _trust you,_ after you lied to me? Both of you," she repeated, incredulous.

"We did you a favour, protecting you from him," he argued. "He's not a good man. He wouldn't have made a good father."

She wished that she could believe him, but how could she when their entire relationship, from the day that she was born up until that moment, had been built on a lie?

"Like you are? You had _twenty-seven years_ to tell me the truth," she reminded him. "You didn't think I had a right to know?"

"I did what I thought was best," he tried to explain, a pleading note in his tone, begging her not to let it change the way she thought of him. For all intents and purposes he was still the man who raised her. "I never wanted to see you to look at me like that – like a stranger. From the first moment I saw you, all I wanted was to take care of you. It didn't matter how you got here."

She wanted to tell him that she was okay with it – that as far as she was concerned he was still her dad – but she wasn't and she didn't know if she ever would be. "Maybe not to you, Sam, but it does to me."

She turned away from him, towards the door, to avoid seeing the pain in his expression. She couldn't deal with this now, not on top of everything else that was happening. "You can stay 'til after the surgery but then I want you gone."

* * *

Next chapter: Kate seeks comforts in the arms of the only person who has never betrayed her... ;)


	14. Chapter 14

Thanks for the reviews. It was great to hear from so many new readers! :)

Special thanks to Katharine for pointing out that Sam was more likely stationed in _Seoul,_ _South _Korea (which incidently would make an awesome crossover). ;)

* * *

Chapter 14.

That evening Jack waited for Kate to come by his office.

He checked her mother's room after closing it up at eight but when he found no sign of her there either he was forced to leave without saying goodbye.

It had started raining some time during the day; as he drove home with the windshield wipers on, hunched over the steering wheel so that he could see the road ahead, he hoped that wherever she was, she hadn't got caught in it.

Once he reached his apartment, he took a hot shower and warmed a carton of leftover take out in the microwave so that he could an early night. He wanted to be at his best for her mother's surgery. It wasn't just his career that was at stake this time. He couldn't afford for anything to go wrong.

He was just about to sit down in front of the TV to eat when there was a knock at his door, loud and insistent.

"_Kate_?" he said, staring at her in confusion when he opened it to find her standing out in the hall, soaking wet and shivering, tiny droplets of water sliding from her long hair, down to the carpet at her feet.

"Where did you get this address?" he asked, still in shock. He'd been careful never to invite her back to his place, afraid of what might happen, of what his father would say if he knew.

"I looked you up," she confessed, her teeth chattering, wrapping her arms tighter around herself to keep warm. "I needed to see you. Can I come in?"

It was breaking every rule, every boundary that he'd set for their relationship, but against his better judgement, he found himself stepping back.

He couldn't leave her out there to freeze, he reasoned. He would give her the chance to warm up and _then_ he would send her back where she came from.

"How did you get here?" he asked her, wondering how she'd managed to get so wet between a cab and the entrance to his building.

"I walked," she explained, moving past him into the apartment, and as he got his first good look at her, he saw that she was crying, her tears mingling with the rain on her cheeks.

He felt his stomach clench with fear as he went over each of the possibilities. What if he was too late and her mother was already dead? What if she'd withdrawn permission for the operation? What if Tom had changed his mind and come back to try to patch things up with her?

"Hey, what happened?" he prompted her once the door was closed behind them, cupping her shoulders in his palms so that he could study her expression.

He could see that she was trying hard to hold herself together but rather than answer right away her face crumpled with anguish and she shook her head. "They _lied_, Jack."

He'd never seen her so distressed about anything, Tom's affair and her mother's illness included; he tried to follow what she was telling him, but on its own, it didn't make any sense. "_Who_ lied? Who's _they_, Kate?"

"My parents," she choked out, sucking in a deep breath. "My dad – _Sam_ – he's not…" She trailed off, struggling to compose herself. "He's not really my father. Some guy named Wayne is."

He blinked at her, stunned, aware that he should say something but at a loss as to what. If what she'd just announced to him was true then no amount of words could make it better for her.

"Why don't you sit down while I get you a towel?" he told her, steering her into the living room, to the couch, where she would at least be more comfortable. "Then you can start again from the beginning."

She flashed him a grateful smile when he returned with one that he'd found in the hall closet.

"Are you sure?" he pressed gently, perching on the coffee table opposite her so that their knees were just touching, watching her wring the moisture out of her hair. "How d'you know all this?"

"I found an old picture of Sam in Korea while my mom was pregnant with me," she admitted, "so I asked him about it, and that's what he told me."

She let the towel sink to her lap as fresh tears sprang to her eyes. "How could they do that? How could they lie to me like that?"

It hurt him to see her so broken. "I don't know," he agreed with a sad smile.

On impulse, he reached out a tentative hand to stroke her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "God, Kate, I am so sorry," he murmured, wishing that he had something more to offer her than just his sympathy. "I can't even imagine how painful that must've been for you."

She leant into it, closing her eyes, and before he knew what she was doing, her lips found his in a kiss that was fierce and tender, desperate and sweet.

It was exactly the kind of contact that he'd been longed for but he couldn't help wondering if it was really about him. She was hurt and confused. He wasn't sure that he could trust her to understand w_hat_ she was feeling.

He forced himself to break it, his heart heavy with disappointment as he said, "Come on. I'll drive you back to the motel."

He moved to stand, stopping when she used his hand to pull him back down. "No. Please, Jack?" she insisted. "Can't I just stay here with you?"

He knew that he shouldn't let her, that he was playing a dangerous game just by allowing her to cross the threshold of his apartment, but he could see that she wasn't ready to go back and face her parents yet and he wasn't ready for her to leave either.

He needed to be sure that she was okay first.

"We should get you out of those wet clothes…" he told her, stalling for an answer; he hadn't meant anything by it except that he was concerned about her catching cold but she took the opportunity to kiss him again, nipping at his bottom lip as she tugged on his shirt.

This time when he pulled away, he caught her hands in his, holding them at his sides to stop her. "You can stay, but you and me – _this_, Kate – is not gonna happen," he warned her. "Not tonight."

He would do whatever he could to help her, but he wasn't going to let her use him as a distraction. She deserved better than that. They both did.

He dropped a gentle kiss to her forehead when she averted her eyes, ashamed, and got up, heading down the hall to his bedroom where he dug out his old college sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants that he hoped wouldn't be too big.

"Here." He pressed them into her hands, taking the damp towel from her and replacing it with a fresh one. "Bathroom's to the left if you wanna take a shower."

"Okay," she agreed with a tight smile, her freckled cheeks flaming as she rushed out of the room, but as guilty as he felt for embarrassing her, he knew that he would have felt worse if he'd given in.

When almost twenty minutes passed and she still hadn't emerged he found himself growing anxious. He didn't _think_ that she would try to hurt herself, he couldn't be sure. She was unpredictable in her state of mind and that scared him.

In the end, his concern for her won out over his resolve to give her her privacy and he went to the bathroom to check on her.

"Kate?" he called, rapping on the door. "Is everything okay in there?"

There was a long pause; he pressed his ear to the wood, listening, relieved when she insisted, "Everything's fine. I'll be out in a minute."

As he lingered there, he heard a muffled sob escape her throat and he knew that she'd been crying and was trying to hide it; he wandered into the kitchen, feeling helpless because there was nothing that he could do for her.

He couldn't go back in time, and even if he could, there was nothing about her that he would change. She was perfect, whoever her father was. He just wished that he could tell her that.

"Jack?" He turned at the sound of his name to see her standing in the doorway behind him, looking like her old self only more dishevelled, his oversized clothes making her thin frame appear even smaller and more delicate.

"What is it?" she asked, crinkling her nose when he handed her a mug, and watching her shake back her sleeve to free her fingers, he smiled.

"Hot chocolate. My mom used to make it for me when I was having a bad day."

"It's gonna take more than hot chocolate to turn this day — this _month _—around," she insisted, but the corners of her lips lifted, the sight of her smile after what she'd just been through warming his heart.

"Thank you, for this—" She gestured to her mug "—and for just being there," she said, her voice soft and sincere. "I don't know what I'd be doing right now if I hadn't met you."

"You're welcome," he agreed, touched that he'd been able to make a difference, even if it didn't feel like enough.

As she stood there in front of him, holding his gaze, he wanted to kiss her, like he had so many times, but he didn't, tearing his eyes from hers and leading the way back out into the living room instead.

He sank onto the couch, expecting her to take the other end, surprised when she set her mug down on the coffee table and curled into the space beside him, her head drooping onto his shoulder, her palm resting against his stomach.

It should have been awkward, but it wasn't, not when he'd missed the warmth of another body against his, when he was enjoying having her so close.

"What're you gonna do now?" he asked her when he recovered himself, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in so that their position was more natural.

She was in sore need of comfort: surely there was no rule against him giving it to her? It wasn't professional, but it was innocent enough provided that they didn't take it any further.

He raised his hand, combing his fingers through her damp curls.

She'd borrowed his shampoo, he noted, deciding that be liked the scent better of her.

He liked his sweatshirt better on her too. There was something about seeing her there in his apartment, in his clothes that felt so right.

"Are you gonna try to find this Wayne guy?"

"I don't think so," she told him, her eyes drifting shut as the soothing sensation washed over her. "Sam may not be my father, but he's still my dad. I just need to find a way to forgive him."

He sat there stroking her hair, listening to the even sound of her breathing as the tension left her and she began to relax until the growl of his stomach reminded him that he hadn't gotten around to finishing dinner.

"Hey, Kate? Have you eaten?" he checked, realising that with everything else that was happening, he hadn't thought to find out if she was hungry.

When she didn't respond, he glanced down at her still features, seeing that she was asleep. "Let's get you into bed, huh?" he told her even though he wasn't sure that she could hear him, tucking an errant lock of dark hair behind her ear with a tender smile.

She looped her arms around his neck when he lifted her up off the couch, clinging to him instinctively as he carried her into the bedroom.

As he peeled back the covers and eased her down, he couldn't resist placing an impulsive kiss against her lips, knowing that she wouldn't remember it in the morning.

"Jack?" she mumbled with a sleepy smile and he froze when it occurred to him that he she might not be as senseless as he'd thought.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad I came here tonight," she told him and he relaxed.

"Me too," he agreed, grinning as he switched off the lamp. "Night."

"I really like you," she continued before he could leave the room, slurring the syllables together with exhaustion, and he let out a soft chuckle at how chatty she was, wondering if she was even aware of what she was saying.

It was endearing, but then as far as he was concerned, so were most of the things that she said and did.

"I think…" Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper, coming out as a kind of sigh and he had to lean in close to catch the rest, her next words almost stopping his heart "…_I love you_."

* * *

Next chapter: The next morning... ;)


	15. Chapter 15

Thanks for the reviews. I wasn't expecting such an enthusiatic response! :)

Since this chapter involves a lot of setting up for future chapters, I decided to do something a little different and combine perspectives. It's not going to be a regular thing but I think you'll find it works well here because you get to see what both Jack and Kate are thinking.

On a side note, I just posted my first (AU Jate) video on You Tube. I'm putting the link on my profile for anyone who's interested. ;)

* * *

Chapter 15.

"_I think… I love you."_

Kate buried her face in Jack's pillow with a groan as the words drifted into her mind. She only had a vague memory of saying them, but she knew that it was real and that it was too late for her to take them back.

It didn't help that his musky scent was everywhere – on the pillow, the sheets, the clothes that he'd lent her – reminding her of how good it felt when he'd held her, even if it was more out of sympathy than anything romantically motivated.

She didn't even want to think about the damage that she'd done to their relationship with the show she'd put on for him the night before. They were supposed to be friends, but friends didn't try to jump each other; they didn't cuddle up to each other on the couch, and they _certainly_ didn't say, "I think I love you".

But then had he really minded any of it? Had she just imagined it when he'd kissed her goodnight? When he'd kissed her back, even though he was the one who resisted taking things to the next level?

She lifted her head at a soft tap on the door, letting it fall back down when she heard him outside.

"Kate? Are you awake?"

She didn't know if she could face him; all she had to do was pretend to be asleep, she realised, and they could avoid an awkward conversation about whether or not she remembered – and if she'd meant it – without her having to lie.

Then they could go back to the way things were before and she wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of discovering that he didn't share her feelings.

"Kate?"

She closed her eyes when the sound of the door handle turning informed her that he was about to come in; a moment later she heard it click back into place and his footstep recede down the hall.

She lay there listening to him go through his morning routine – the whirr of the coffee machine followed by the beat of the water from the shower head hitting the tiles – until the front door slammed behind him, regretting her decision as she padded out into the living area and noticed how silent and empty it was without him.

She found a note from him on the bench, smiling until she reached the last line:

_K,_

_I'm sorry I missed you this morning – I had to be at the hospital early for pre-op. I would have given you a ride but I didn't want to wake you._

_Feel free to help yourself to whatever you can find if you're hungry. I left a key on the counter so you can lock up after yourself when you leave._

_See you later._

_J._

It was so… _casual… _after what she'd admitted to him the night before. She wished that she knew what he was thinking when he wrote it, if – even for a moment – he'd wanted to put "_I love you too_".

* * *

"I don't think I can do this – this surgery," Jack complained, barging into Marc's office.

The same thought had been circling his head since leaving his apartment – and Kate. She'd suffered enough, between her parents and Tom. He didn't want to be the one to cause her more pain.

"Why not?" Marc asked, frowning as he glanced up from his computer.

"I'm in love with her."

There, he'd said it. He loved her. He just had to figure out a way to tell her.

"_Diane_?!" Marc repeated, incredulous, leaning forward across the desk, and if he wasn't so wound up Jack might have laughed.

"Not Diane, _Kate_," he corrected him, sobering as he added, "I'm in love with her."

"When did this happen?" Marc insisted, settling back, but he didn't look any less confused.

Last he'd heard Jack wasn't going to pursue her; he was beginning to wish that he'd followed his father's advice.

"She came to my place, last night," he confessed, pulling up the visitor's chair. "She was upset about something and—"

It wasn't until Marc cocked an eyebrow at him that he was aware of how this must sound. "Nothing like that," he assured him, even though it might have if he hadn't stopped it. "She slept in my room, I slept on the couch. There was no sex, we just… connected."

He wasn't sure how else to explain what had happened. It wasn't physical. It was so much more than that.

"She told me she loves me," he admitted, still at a loss for what to do with this information. "She was half asleep at the time so I'm not even sure she knew what she was saying…"

But she'd called him Jack, so he couldn't see that she'd meant it for anyone else. She had to have been talking to him.

"So what happens now?" Marc asked him, bringing his thoughts to the present. "You love her, she loves you – are you gonna ask her out on a date?"

"I don't know," he told him with a sigh, dropping his head into his hands and massaging his brow with his fingertips. He couldn't think about that now. He still had to get through her mother's surgery first. "I guess that depends on whether I kill her mom today. I can't see her wanting much to do with me after that."

"You're not gonna _kill_ her mom," Marc insisted, rolling his eyes, but as much as he wished that he could believe him, Jack couldn't shake the overwhelming sense of terror that he felt at the idea.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I know you," he reminded him. "You're one of the best surgeons at this hospital, and you care too much to screw this up."

He fixed him with a reassuring smile, and Jack felt his hope returning at the knowledge that his best friend, at least, had that much faith in him. "You'll be fine – you just need to put Kate out of your head and focus on doing your job."

* * *

Despite his well-intentioned offer, all Kate found in Jack's fridge was half a bottle of mayonnaise, a couple of cans of beer, some milk and a carton of Chinese food of indeterminable age.

The pantry was equally bare: cereal, coffee, ketchup…

Nothing but the essentials and things that didn't need to be replaced more than once every couple of months.

It was clear that he didn't spend much time at his apartment: he was so busy taking care of everyone else; it saddened her to think that – with his wife out of the picture – there was no one to make sure that he was taking care of himself too.

She was starving after missing dinner the night before; as soon as her cab pulled up in front of the hospital, she made a beeline for the cafeteria, not seeing Jack coming from the other direction until she almost ran into him.

"Hey," she greeted him, plastering on an uncomfortable grin when it occurred to her that she had no idea what to say to him.

"Hey," he returned with an awkward smile, fidgeting with his coffee as though he couldn't wait to escape her as he added, "How're you feeling today?"

"Better," she told him.

"Good."

They had reached a dead end in the conversation; she decided to change the subject, still skirting around the elephant in the room as she said, "I wanna thank you, for last night. I was a mess, I know, so… just… thanks."

"That's what friends are for, right?" he reminded her, glancing down at his cup and her heart sank.

There it was again. Friends. He didn't love her. She was crazy to think that he might.

"Right," she agreed, forcing a smile to hide how disappointed she was.

"Listen, I'm glad I caught you," he told her, clearing his throat, and she felt every muscle in her body tense as he continued, "There's something I need to ask you."

He wanted to know why she'd said what she did; he was going to tell her that he was flattered but that was as far as it went. "Sure."

"Are you gonna be okay today, seeing your mom?"

She didn't know whether to be relieved or upset. He wasn't even going to mention it? He was just going to pretend that it never happened?

"I can't, Jack, I'm sorry," she told him. As hard as it was for her to let go of her anger towards Sam, it was going to be even harder for her to forgive her mother. She hadn't just lied, she'd _cheated_ on him. If anything he was as much a victim in this as she was.

"I know it's probably the last thing you wanna do right now but if something goes wrong… I just wouldn't want you to have any regrets," he insisted, touching her elbow, his voice dropping to a low murmur that made it difficult for her remain in control.

"I wish I could go in there and pretend nothing's changed but it's too soon," she argued, hating herself for not being big enough to do just that. Her mother could die on the operating table and she couldn't even bring herself to say goodbye. "I need more time to process this."

"D'you wanna know what I think – not as your mom's doctor, but as your… friend?" he asked, stumbling over the last word, and she felt herself colour again.

"What?"

"I think you're making a mistake," he told her, his dark eyes locking on hers as he tried one final time to convince her to change her mind.

"Maybe," she allowed, "but that's just how I feel."

He tore his gaze from hers after a moment, checking his watch. "I should get moving," he said, sounding almost apologetic as he added, "Surgery's in an hour and I've still got a lot to do."

He might not be in love with her, but according to him, they were still friends; as he turned to go, she reached her arms out to him, drawing him into a tight hug.

He seemed surprised at first, then he relaxed into her embrace, burying his face in her hair as he squeezed back.

She wasn't sure how long it lasted – it could have been a few minutes or a few seconds – but finally he began to pull away.

"Good luck in there, okay?" she told him, flustered, as she released him. It hadn't felt very friendly.

He smiled again, a warm smile this time, and she found herself smiling too. "Thanks."

* * *

"Are you sure you're up to performing this procedure today, Jack?" his father asked as they stood side by side in the anteroom, washing their hands in preparation for surgery.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded, taking this as a challenge, not just of his abilities but his commitment. Everything Marc had said was true. He couldn't let his personal feelings get in the way of his job.

"The last time I saw you, your knuckles were bandaged," his father reminded him, glancing down at them. "What happened to your hand, son?"

While the swelling had dissipated, and the bruising where he'd absorbed the brunt of the impact had faded to a yellowish-brown, the skin was still scabbed over, making the injury difficult to conceal. "I slammed it in the car door," he lied. "It wasn't a big deal."

"Let me be the judge of that," his father insisted, holding out his own hand. "Show me."

As the chief of surgery, he could suspend him if he didn't think that he was fit for duty; with a sigh, Jack did.

"You said a door did this?" his father checked, examining it, and Jack knew that he didn't believe him. "Because if I didn't know any better I'd say that you hit something – or _someone_."

He might have been able to convince Kate's parents that it was an accident, but his father wasn't easily fooled. "I punched a wall," he agreed, withdrawing it, deciding that this was still better than the truth: that he _had_ hit a guy for grabbing Kate in a bar when he should never have taken her in the first place. "Happy?

"I'm not sure 'happy' is the right word. I'm concerned about you, Jack," his father told him, his steely blue eyes boring into Jack's. "I wouldn't want to think that you pushed Diane Austen's surgery forward just so you can start seeing her daughter."

"You think this is about, Kate, Dad? This has nothing to do with her!" he insisted, even though in the back of his mind, he could see why he might think that this was the case.

Each day it was getting harder for him to deny his feelings for her; seeing the hurt in her expression outside the cafeteria when he referred to himself as her friend just made it worse.

"You know what can happen if we just stand back and let the tumour metastasise. I'm just trying to help them. All I want is to save her mom's life."

* * *

Next chapter: Kate and Sam talk in the waiting room, and Jack delivers the news on the outcome of Diane's surgery (which will result in either Jate angst or Jate fluff)... ;)


	16. Chapter 16

Thanks for the reviews. I decided not to leave you in suspense for too long... ;)

* * *

Chapter 16.

"Katie! Thank God," her father said, getting to his feet when she found him on one of the sofas in the waiting area. "Where were you? I was worried sick."

It was the first time she'd seen him since he told her about Wayne; she didn't know what to say to him or even if she wanted to talk to him at all.

"At least tell me you were safe – that you didn't end up sleeping at a bus shelter somewhere," he pressed when she took her time answering.

"I was safe," she agreed, deciding that he deserved that much at least.

When she failed to elaborate, his eyes travelled down to her clothes – the same ones that she was wearing when she stormed out of the motel the day before. They were dry when she retrieved them from the bathroom that morning but she hadn't had time to go back to her room to change.

"You were with Dr. Shephard, weren't you?" he supplied, the disapproval clear in his tone. "You spent the night with him."

Despite her assurances that they were just friends, she could see that he still wasn't convinced.

"So what if I did?" she insisted, growing defensive at his continued interference in her relationship with Jack. She was a grown woman. If she wanted to sleep with him, that was her choice, though it didn't look like that would be happening any time soon. "I don't see how that's any of your business."

His look shifted from one of hurt to resignation as he sank back into his chair. "Because I'm not your father," he finished for her with a sigh.

"No, because I'm not your little girl anymore, Dad," she corrected him, softening as she sat down beside him, and he glanced up at her, his eyes alight with hope. "You can't always protect me."

He stared at her for a long time with what might almost be awe, studying her expression before he agreed, "I see that now," and she smiled, relieved that he wasn't going to argue with her.

Her whole life, all she'd ever wanted was to be like him, to be worthy. That was why the truth had come as such a blow.

They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying this new understanding, until the ghost of a grin crept onto his features and he repeated, "Dad?"

"I've been thinking a lot," she confessed with a smile.

He eyed her with a hopeful look. "And?"

"_And_ you were the one who changed my diapers, and read to me, and taught me everything you knew," she explained. She realised then that she'd meant what she'd said to Jack. Sam was her father. It didn't matter who else's blood she shared. "I am who I am today because of you, not because of some guy who happened to get Mom pregnant."

"Does this mean you've changed your mind about wanting me to be a part of your life?" he checked, his voice soft, tentative.

"Yeah," she admitted, ashamed of the way that she'd spoken to him for doing what he thought was right, feeling her throat close up as she added in a choked whisper, "I love you, Daddy."

Tears sprang to his eyes and he pulled her into a crushing hug. "I love you too, baby."

"Please don't go," she pleaded, wishing that she could take those words back. She hated saying goodbye to him.

"Honey, I have to," he told her, his look almost apologetic as he released her. "This was never gonna be forever – you knew that."

She had, but somehow she'd thought that it would be different, like she did every time he blew into town. "It feels like you're always leaving," she complained. She was tired of being brave, of keeping her chin up so that he wouldn't have to feel guilty. "When're you gonna come home for good?"

"When there're no more wars—" He let out a self deprecating chuckle "—or I get too old – whichever comes first."

He laid a hand against her cheek, sobering. "This country still needs me. You don't. You've proven that. You're beautiful, smart, strong – exactly the kind of woman I always hoped you'd grow up to be. I'm not surprised that Tom isn't the only one who's noticed."

It was his subtle way of trying again, she realised.

"There's nothing going on between me and Jack, Dad," she insisted, rolling her eyes, finding it difficult to hide her grin after waiting her whole life to hear something like that. "He let me stay over last night, that's all."

She stared down at the ground, feeling a fresh wave of bitterness. It wasn't fair. Why did she have to fall for the one man that circumstances wouldn't allow her to have?

"I've seen the way he looks at you, and trust me, there's no 'all' about it," her father told her and as his words sunk, she was filled with new hope.

She'd convinced herself that he didn't want her the way that she wanted him, but what if that wasn't it? What if there really was another explanation for his lukewarm behaviour?

"You really think…?"

"I don't just think, I _know_," he assured her with a grin and she found herself smiling too.

"Thanks, Daddy."

"But if he hurts you…" he warned her, his voice firm, fixing her with a stern look. "You outta make sure he knows that I'm an excellent shot."

"Does this mean you'll be going after Tom now?" she teased him. While he was right – she had loved him, but not in the same way that she now loved Jack – she knew that it would be a long time before she could forgive him.

"You know, I never liked that little bastard," her father agreed with a laugh. "I always thought you could do better."

He raised an eyebrow at her, the corners of his lips twitching with amusement when she stared at him in shock. He'd never told her that before. "Now a world class city spinal surgeon – that isn't bad."

* * *

An hour into the surgery, they fell into a tense silence, Kate resting her head on her father's shoulder as he sat with his arm around her; she jerked upright when the doors leading to the operating room swung open and a tall figure in blue scrubs emerged.

"That's Jack," she announced, watching him pull off his mask.

He was still wearing his cap, which she figured was a good sign; she tried to read his expression as he approached but he kept it blank, professional, his eyes giving nothing away.

"Is she...?" she asked him when he stopped in front of them, trailing off, too afraid to finish the question. She wished that she'd paid her mother one last visit before she went in, instead of being so stubborn…

"She's stable," he agreed, breaking into a grin. "We still have to run a few tests, but it looks like we got it all."

It wasn't until she heard these words that she realised just how scared she'd been; she was so overcome with relief that she threw her arms around his neck without thinking about where they were or who might see them.

"You're amazing, you know that?" she told him, gazing up at him, their position ensuring that their faces were only inches apart.

She felt his breath hitch in his throat before hitting her skin, becoming shallower and more rapid so that he swallowed hard. "You're not so bad yourself," he murmured, and she noticed that he wasn't letting go.

All she had to do was tilt her chin upwards and wait for him to meet her halfway…

"I hate to be the one to break up this moment," she heard her father say from somewhere behind them, snapping them out of the trance that they'd fallen into, "but shouldn't you be getting back in there, son?"

"I really should," Jack agreed, taking a step back, acknowledging him with a weak smile. "I'll get right on that, Sergeant."

He turned back to Kate, his dark eyes urgent. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

Before she could answer, he took hold of her elbow, pulling her over to a quiet corner of the waiting area where there was little chance of them being overheard.

"I've gotta finish up here," he told her, "but will you come over later? There's something I need to get off my chest."

She couldn't remember the last time that she'd seen him this uncomfortable. He looked and sounded so serious; she didn't know what to expect. "Okay," she agreed.

"Okay," he repeated, flashing her a nervous grin, relaxing as he slid his hand from her arm. "So I guess I'll see you tonight."

* * *

Those of you who were hoping for angst: don't worry, it's coming...

Next chapter: Kate meets Jack at his apartment... ;)


	17. Chapter 17

Thanks for the reviews. You're right, that _was_ cruel, so I'm going to put you all out of your misery... ;)

* * *

Chapter 17.

That evening, Jack found himself growing more and more anxious as he waited for Kate to show up at his apartment. He still hadn't figured out what he was going to say to her or if he was doing the right thing. He felt like he was stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place, being forced to choose sides: hers or his father's. Either way, whichever decision he made, he could end up destroying his relationship with one of the most important people in his life.

For once he'd managed get away from the hospital early, at around seven; it was almost an hour later when he was roused from his thoughts by a persistent knock.

He hadn't told her to bring anything, so he was surprised to see that her arms were full.

"What's this?" he asked, forgetting his nervousness for a moment as he took one of the brown paper bags from her and examined its contents.

Inside was fruit, vegetables; even some meat, which he realised must be for him.

"They're called groceries, Jack," she teased him, kicking the door shut behind her as she moved past him to the kitchen. "A person could starve to death in this place – when was the last time you went to the store?"

"Honestly? I don't remember," he told her, trailing in after her, leaning back against the cabinets as he watched her bounce from place to place unpacking.

She was a bundle of energy tonight; he wondered if he would be able to pin her down long enough to have a serious discussion with her.

"Well you have to let me cook for you tonight, as a thank you," she insisted. "I feel like I owe you so much."

She flashed him a bright smile as she opened the refrigerator and began to put away the perishable goods. "You must be exhausted. Why don't you sit down, have a drink? There should be some wine in that bag over there."

He peered into the bag that she waved him towards, pulling out a bottle of red wine, but he didn't uncork it, setting it down beside him on the bench.

It was a sweet gesture – going to the store, offering to make him dinner – but he wasn't sure that he bought into it. She was trying _too_ hard.

And she hadn't mentioned their conversation at the hospital.

"Kate…"

He knew he was right – that something was bothering her – when the bag slipped from her grip, spilling everywhere, and she scrambled to pick it up.

As he crouched to help her, he noticed that she was trembling. "Hey," he murmured, lifting her chin to get her to look at him. "What's wrong?"

"Please don't say it, Jack," she pleaded, her green eyes glistening with tears.

"Say what?" he checked, at a loss for what he'd done to upset her so much.

She drew in a shuddering breath, struggling to keep her emotions in check. "That _this_ is all it can ever be. I don't wanna be your friend," she whispered. "I _can't_."

It wasn't until he heard the word 'friend' that something inside his brain clicked and he thought he understood her reaction. So she _did_ remember. "Kate, when you said—?"

"Can we just forget about that? Start over?" she interrupted him, getting to her feet, dumping the items she'd collected up onto the bench. "We can have dinner and just talk, about my mom, the surgery – whatever you want."

Just not that, he added for her.

She busied herself with arranging and rearranging everything, anything to avoid having to meet his eyes.

"Do you really wanna forget about it?" he insisted softly, stepping up behind her, succeeding in getting her to turn around.

She was staring at him wide-eyed, too stunned to speak; he used the opportunity to grasp the sides of her face and pull her into a kiss like he'd thought about doing so many times.

Her eyes drifted shut in response as she opened her mouth to his, and he felt her hands creep up to the back of his neck, caressing it with her fingers as she deepened it.

"What about your dad?" she asked when they finally broke for air. "What would he say if he knew I was here?" They were both breathing hard; she brought her lips to the corner of his mouth, kissing his cheek, his jaw, beneath his earlobe. "Doing this?"

If she kept it up, she was going to leave a mark; he knew that he should be worried about getting caught, but now that he had her in his arms he couldn't find it in himself to care. It was time for him to start thinking about what _he_ wanted, and right now that was her.

It took him a while to remember that he was still hadn't answered her. "I'm done letting him control me," he assured her. "That's not why I asked you to come here."

"Why did you?" she pressed, releasing him, staring at him with rapt attention.

He steered her around to the other side of the bench, gesturing for her to sit down. "I wanted you to come here tonight," he began, taking a deep breath, his voice hoarse as he searched for the right words, "so I could tell you I…"

He wasn't sure how to finish that sentence, afraid of coming on too strong with the extent of his feelings. Was it too soon for him to say, 'I love you'? It had only been a few weeks. "…I think I love you too," he teased her.

She let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, her eyes sparkling with happiness as she led him down to kiss her again.

He couldn't seem to get comfortable with her sitting down, so after a moment, he lifted her up off the stool; she wrapped her legs around his waist while he carried her over to the couch and set her down, still kissing her.

Once she was settled, she pulled him down on top of her, loosening his tie and dropping it to the floor. She shifted her attention to his shirt buttons next, peeling it back so that she could kiss his exposed collarbone.

When she craned her neck to meet his lips again he forced himself to pull back.

"What's wrong?" she asked him, frowning at him, her forehead bumping against his as she caught her breath. "Why're we stopping?"

For a moment he wondered this himself, until he reminded himself that the timing still wasn't the best. "I just think we should be smart about this," he explained.

"If you're worried about getting me pregnant, I'm on the pill," she offered, studying his expression.

"That's… good to know," he said, feeling his mouth go dry at the thought of what he was about to give up. "But that's not what I meant."

He rolled off of her, giving her space to sit up. "I think we need to slow down," he suggested. "Now that your mom's surgery's done, you'll probably be going home with her soon and then what happens?" Even if they managed to escape his father's notice – and that was a big if – there was no guarantee that things would work out between them. "I don't wanna hurt you."

"I don't wanna hurt you either," she agreed, sinking back against the top of the couch with a sigh. "So what do we do?"

He reached over to brush a lock of hair back from her face. "We take each day as it comes, starting with today," he told her.

She nodded, swallowing her disappointment; a moment later her serious look turned coy. "But while we're doing that, we can still do this, right?" she insisted, kissing him slowly.

"And this?" She held his gaze with a playful smirk as she ducked her head to nuzzle his throat.

"And this?" She returned her mouth to his and he grinned against her lips.

"I don't see why not…"

* * *

I said there would be angst. I didn't say when. That wasn't it...

Next chapter: Kate talks to Diane and maybe a date... ;)


	18. Chapter 18

Thanks for the reviews. (Carlie, I will definitely take that under advisement :)). I'm glad no one seems to have any objections to the new direction I've decided to take things in. Diane's a little OOC in this chapter, or maybe just a little AU, but I had to adapt her character and her relationships with Kate and Sam in order for this fic to work... ;)

* * *

Chapter 18.

"Where did you go yesterday?" Kate's mother asked her when she stepped into her room the following afternoon. "I thought you were gonna come by and wish me luck?"

After saying goodnight to Jack, Kate had spent most of the night debating whether or not she was prepared to see her now that the anaesthetic had worn off; in the end, she'd forced herself to go, if only to get answers to the questions that she didn't have the heart to ask her father.

"I'm sorry, I guess I must've over slept," she told her, which wasn't far from the truth: if she'd accepted a ride from him instead of pretending to be asleep she would have had time to stop in before the surgery, but that wouldn't have solved the problem of not knowing what to say to her.

"Where's Tom?" her mother tried again, sensing the change in her attitude when the conversation tapered off into silence. "Did he come back yet?"

"Tom and I aren't together anymore, Mom," she confessed, struggling to keep the hostility out of her voice, her eyes locking on hers as she added, "He cheated on me so I told him to leave."

Her mother's mouth fell open and she blinked up at her as if she could hardly believe what she was hearing. "He did? Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry," she said, holding her hand out for Kate's when she recovered from her shock. "I know he loves you."

Her sympathetic response only made Kate angrier. "Are you?" she demanded, recoiling before she could touch her. How could she be such a hypocrite? At least Tom had the guts to admit what he did.

"Am I what, Katherine?" her mother pressed, her voice taking on a sharp note.

"Sorry."

"You know," she insisted, losing her temper, flinching when she tried to sit up, only to lay back again, "I had this surgery for you – the least you could do is show me a little respect."

"I know about Wayne, Mom," Kate blurted out, feeling a grim sense of satisfaction when the remaining colour drained from her mother's face and she eyed her with a guilty look.

"Where did you hear that name?

"I found a picture of Dad in Korea so I asked him about it and he told me," she explained before she could deny it.

Bitter tears stung her eyes and she couldn't suppress her hurt as rushed on, "What I wanna know from you, Mom, is – _why_? Why did you do it?"

Her mother closed her eyes, letting out a long, tired sigh. "I don't know," she confessed.

"You've never been married. You have no idea what it's like to be alone, _waiting_, wondering if today is the day those men are gonna come to the door and tell you your husband is dead. I never asked for that life – I thought I could handle it but I… I made a mistake."

When she opened them again, they were glistening.

"Is that what I am? A mistake?" Kate whispered, moving closer, choking on the word.

If she'd never existed, or they'd chosen not to keep her, would her parents have been happier? Would her father have come home more often?

"_No_," her mother argued, looking horrified. She reached for her hand again, and this time, Kate let her, sinking onto the edge of the bed. "_You_ were never a mistake. Not to me, and not to your father. He loves you, Katherine – we both do. We wouldn't trade you for anything in the world."

"Even a daughter of your own?"

"_Especially_ a daughter of our own," her mother agreed with a tearful smile, squeezing her fingers, "because she wouldn't be you."

Since discovering that Sam wasn't her biological father, Kate had been fighting an internal battle over how much she wanted to know about the man whose genes she carried.

"Do I look like him?" she asked, afraid of what her mother would tell her. When she looked in the mirror now, it wasn't her own face, but a stranger's, that she saw, and she wondered why she hadn't suspected it earlier. People always said that she resembled her mother the most. Now she knew why.

"A little," her mother agreed. "You have his eyes."

As soon as she heard this, Kate wished that she hadn't brought him up. "Did you love him?" she pressed. Somehow she thought it would be easier to accept if she did.

"I loved _you_ more," her mother said, lifting her hand to her cheek. "That's why I chose Sam to be your father. I knew he'd look after you, and he has. You might have Wayne's eyes, but you're so much like him."

Kate smiled at her assurance that even though she wasn't blood related to him, she took after Sam. "You're wrong, you know," she insisted. "I've never married a soldier, but I know what it's like to always be waiting for one."

She glanced up when she heard a rap on the door, her smile morphing into a grin when it opened and Jack poked his head inside.

"Am I interrupting?" he checked with a frown when he noticed their tears.

"No, it's okay, we're pretty much done," she told him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she slid off the bed.

"Good," he agreed, coming in the rest of the way. He turned to her mother. "How're you feeling today?"

"Like someone just cut a hole in my back," she told him with a wry smile and he laughed.

"Let's take a look at that incision, shall we?"

He helped her mother to sit up, replacing the dressings before allowing her to lie back again.

"Now, would you mind if I borrowed your daughter?" he asked her once he finished updating her chart. He shifted his attention to Kate, biting back a grin. "There're a few things we need to go over."

"Go right ahead," her mother agreed, shooting her a knowing look that informed her that there would be a discussion about this later. "Something tells me _she_ won't."

She realised that the only thing he had any intention of going over was her lips when, as soon as she pulled the door shut behind them, he took her hands in each of his and kissed her.

"Here, Jack? In the middle of the hall, where anyone could walk by and see us?" she asked, peeking over his shoulder to make sure that they were alone when they stopped for breath. The last thing they needed was for his father – or someone reporting back to his father – to come along and catch them making out in the corridor.

"What can I say? I've decided to start living dangerously," he agreed, kissing her a second time.

She let it go on for just long enough to assure him that the problem wasn't him before she broke it again. "Well as much fun as that sounds, I don't wanna be responsible for your dad firing you," she argued.

"He wouldn't fire me, Kate," he insisted with a self-deprecating laugh that made her think he was only half joking. "That would be too easy."

She didn't know how to respond so she decided to do something to lighten the mood. "What'd he say about this?" she asked, smirking at him as she freed one of her hands from his to trace the mark she made on his neck the night before. It was low enough that he almost managed to cover it with the collar of his shirt, but to anyone who knew what they were looking for…

"Lucky for us, I don't think he's seen it," he told her, touching it himself when she withdrew her fingers.

"Then I guess I'll just have to make it bigger next time," she teased him.

She succeeded in getting him to smile, raising an eyebrow at her. "I thought you didn't want me to get fired?"

"Maybe I changed my mind – maybe I want everyone to know who you belong to," she said, sneaking in another quick kiss.

He grinned at her when she drew back, slipping his arms around her. "So you wanna come over tonight, try that dinner again? I promise to keep my hands to myself," he murmured, pulling her closer, his hot breath tickling her ear.

"You'd better not."

* * *

"This doesn't look like making dinner," she complained later as he kept her pinned against the kitchen cabinets, trapping her body with his larger one.

"That's funny – it doesn't feel like making dinner either," he agreed with a husky laugh, kissing the side of her neck.

"So maybe we should take a break and pick this up later?" she told him when her stomach rumbled in protest.

"Or we could just order take out," he suggested, his voice muffled by her skin.

She wriggled out of his grip so that they were facing each other, fixing him with a dubious look. "I thought you said you wanted to take things slow, and yet here we are, going at it in the middle of your kitchen like a couple of sex-starved teenagers."

Sex. That seemed to be the issue, more so than the pace of their relationship. He was okay with kissing her, with telling her that he loved her, but that was one line he couldn't seem to allow himself to cross.

"I'm starting to _feel _like a teenager," he agreed, almost as if sensing her thoughts, sliding his hands down to her waist. "I hate that we have to hide – that I can't take you out without worrying about my dad."

"It's okay, Jack, really," she assured him, looping her arms around his neck, pressing a kiss to the side of his chin. She'd never really dated Tom either. "I'm happy just being with you."

The smile he gave her was wistful as he leant against her so that their foreheads were touching. "You know what else I hate?"

"What?"

"Knowing the alternative is discharging your mom and sending you both home."

While she knew that it was something they would have to deal with eventually, she didn't want to think about it yet either. "We'll figure it out," she told him, stroking the back of his head.

"You and your mom seemed to be getting along okay – does that mean you've decided to forgive her?" he said, changing the subject when he finally released her so that they could get to work on dinner.

"I don't really have a choice," she agreed as she started to take the ingredients out of the fridge. "She made a mistake, but she's still my mom, and she loves me – I just have to keep reminding myself of that."

* * *

"You okay?" he asked her, pressing his lips to her forehead, followed by the back of his hand as she lay in his arms on the couch after dinner. "You're a little warm."

They were supposed to be watching a movie together, but she had no idea what was happening. She was more interested in the feel of his body curled against hers; his fingers as they played with her hair.

"Just tired," she assured him, turning over onto her other side so that she was facing him. "It's been a long couple of days."

"Why don't I take you back to the motel?" he said, moving to sit up, but she pushed him back down beside her with a petulant frown.

"No. This is the only time I get to be alone with you – I wanna make the most of it."

He didn't resist when she kissed him again, his hand wandering beneath her tank top, to her side, withdrawing it when he felt how overheated her skin was.

"I really think you need to sleep, Kate," he insisted, his voice low and gentle as he brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, but firm enough that she knew his mind was made up. "You were out in the rain for all that time – you could be coming down with something."

It might just be the lack of oxygen but she decided that he was right, she was starting to feel a little dizzy. "I told you, I'm fine," she complained, not wanting the night to end just yet, "but if it means that much to you, how about we compromise? I'll rest if you let me stay here – just in case I need a doctor in the middle of the night," she added hastily, trying to make it sound like a joke. He couldn't argue with that, surely?

"Okay," he agreed after a long moment, disentangling himself from her, "but you make sure you do or _I'll_ make sure you get a bed right next to your mom's."

He took her into the bedroom where he found her some of his own clothes to sleep in and she wondered if it was, at least in part, because he was afraid of what his father would say when she showed up at the hospital rumpled and dishevelled the next morning.

She didn't wait for him to leave before she stripped down to the black lace bra that she'd chosen just in case, daring him to turn his back on her.

He didn't, but he didn't watch her either, staring at the wall beside him.

She wasn't sure what had gotten into her as she pulled his t-shirt down over it and shed her jeans, declining the sweatpants that he'd given her. She wasn't _that_ girl – bold, flirtatious, a tease – she never had been, even with Tom, but he was such a gentleman that she felt like it was up to her to let him know that it was okay for him to look.

To touch.

She could see that he was trying hard not to, his whole body rigid except for the muscles in his throat, but she could tell that he was when he turned back to her and his eyes travelled over her calves, her knees, her thighs to the place where her legs disappeared beneath his shirt.

"All set?" he checked, forcing a grim smile as he tore them away.

"Yeah," she agreed, crawling into bed when he pulled the covers back for her.

"Let me know if you need anything, okay?" he told her, pushing the hair back from her face so that he could kiss her forehead.

"Where will you be?" she asked disappointed when she realised that he was leaving.

"Down the hall – I'll probably go watch some TV," he told her, but as he went to stand she grabbed his fingers, holding tight, refusing to let go.

"Or you could stay, keep me company," she insisted softly. "We're both adults here, Jack. Nothing has to happen. We can just sleep."

"Just sleep?" he repeated, still sounding unsure, and she saw that he was really struggling with the idea. He wanted to do the right thing, by her _and_ his father, and he was already going against his wishes just by letting her into his home and his life.

"Just sleep," she confirmed, determined to respect that if that's what he needed to feel comfortable with their relationship. He had enough on his conscience without her forcing the issue.

It wouldn't always be like this, she reminded herself. One day they would be free of his father's scrutiny.

He peeled off his own jeans and climbed in beside her in just his t-shirt and boxers.

After a moment, she rolled over, snuggling into him and draping an arm over his ribs.

As she studied his face in the moonlight, trying to decipher his expression, he smiled, drawing her in closer.

"Night," he whispered, pecking her lips.

"Night," she agreed, returning his smile as she laid her head against his chest and within moments she felt herself begin to drift off.

* * *

Next chapter: Kate wakes up with a fever... ;)


	19. Chapter 19

Thanks for the reviews. Still not the angst I mentioned but we're definitely getting closer. It's hard to come up with interesting fluff so let me know if there're any scenarios you'd like me to explore and I'll see if I can work them in.. ;)

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Chapter 19.

"One hundred and three," Jack announced as he slid the thermometer from between Kate's lips.

It was the next morning and she was burning up; after she'd reluctantly agreed to let him examine her, he'd discovered that not only did she have a fever but her glands had swollen overnight and her heart rate was faster than he would have preferred.

"Don't even think about it," he insisted, catching her shoulders when she tried to scramble out of bed.

"But I have to go see my mom," she protested, her eyes still half closed against the light streaming in through his curtains.

She was in no condition to get up, much less leave the apartment. "The only place you're going is back to sleep," he warned her, guiding her back down to the mattress before she could pass out.

Her compliance as he settled her under the blankets told him how sick she was more so than any of her other symptoms, including her temperature; it wasn't like her not to at least try to resist.

"Don't leave me," she complained, reaching for him when he stood, her hand closing around the fabric of his shirt.

"I'm just gonna get you something to eat and then I'll be right back," he told her, crouching beside her. He unpeeled her fingers, kissing them as he tucked them under the covers with the rest of her. "I promise."

This seemed to reassure her. "Okay," she agreed as her eyes drooped shut.

"Hi," she said, flashing him a drowsy smile when she felt him sit back down beside her.

How was it that even with a raging fever, she was still the sweetest thing that he'd ever seen? "Hi," he returned, finding her hand again and taking it in his, his thumb tracing the skin on the back of it, aware of how hot it was. "How're you holding up?"

"Great," she joked, choking when she tried to laugh. Her gaze fell on the tray that he'd set on the nightstand when he came in. "What's that?"

"Oatmeal, orange juice, Advil," he explained, pointing to each item as he named it. "And water, if you're thirsty."

He'd racked his brains for something healthy that would be gentle on her throat. "Thanks, but I don't think I can swallow," she argued, and he realised then that he should have known she wouldn't make it easy for him.

"I know you don't feel like it, but if you wanna get better, you need to keep your strength up, Kate," he insisted, picking up the bowl.

"Don't make me spoon feed you, because I will," he teased her when she made no move to take it; to prove that he was serious, he dipped the spoon into it and lifted it to her lips. "Here comes the airplane."

"Shut up, Jack," she retorted, rolling her eyes, but she humoured him by opening her mouth, grimacing as she forced herself to swallow.

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" he checked, unable to hide his grin as he added, "Now you wanna try it yourself?"

She sighed, struggling to push herself up into a sitting position. He helped her prop herself against the headboard, rearranging the pillows to make her more comfortable.

She took a couple of tiny mouthfuls then dropped the spoon back in it without seeming to make a dent in it. It looked just as full as when he brought it in.

"Come on, just a few more," he coaxed her, deciding to try a different tactic when she fixed him with a stubborn look, digging her heels in. "If you're having that much trouble getting it down, maybe I _should_ take you in to the hospital so they can give you an IV."

"Your dad would love that," she complained, glaring at him, but somehow she managed to find the strength to eat half of it.

He mashed the pills into quarters to make them easier on her throat, holding the glass up for her so that she could take a sip of the orange juice to wash them down.

"Good girl," he said, smoothing the sweaty bangs from her face once he'd put it back on the tray. "_Now_ you can relax."

"Your beside manner is definitely improving," she commented, closing her eyes with a faint smile as she lay back.

He wanted to believe that she was right, but he knew that it was only because he had her for inspiration. It was almost impossible for him to maintain that kind of distance from her.

She was quiet for a moment, still, and he was sure that she must have been falling asleep until she jerked upright, one arm crossed over her stomach.

"Kate? What's wrong?" he asked her, afraid that she was delirious.

"Bucket – quick," she gasped, her eyes wide, and seeing what was about to happen, he dove for the trashcan.

He managed to get it underneath her before she was sick but she missed the second time when, thinking that she'd finished, he moved to put it down.

"Tell me I _did_ _not_ just throw up on you," she groaned, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand as she flopped back against the pillows. "I'll understand if you wanna start seeing other people now."

"It's fine, I'm a doctor, Kate – it's not the first time I've been thrown up on," he deadpanned to lessen her embarrassment, determined not to make a big deal out of it as he stripped off his shirt and took a fresh one out of the drawer. "So unless you _meant_ to hit me, I won't hold it against you."

She wouldn't look at him as he offered her the juice again. "Hey, it's not your fault," he assured her, wondering if he'd said the wrong thing when her chest heaved and he saw that she was on the verge of tears. "It could mean that whatever virus you have has reached your stomach, or it could just be a reaction to the ibuprofen – it does that to some people."

He took her face in his hands when she finished drinking, kissing the tip of her nose, resting his cool forehead against her searing one.

"I just feel so awful," she complained, starting to shiver and his heart went out to her, hearing how miserable she was. If he could trade places with her, he would. "This isn't how I want you to remember me."

"It's okay," he murmured, covering her with an extra blanket to keep her warm when she curled into a ball on her side. There was no sense it worrying about that now, not when he wasn't going anywhere yet and neither was she. "You just sleep." He stroked her hair to soothe her, grateful when her eyes fluttered shut and she did.

Once he was sure that she was out, he picked up the phone, waiting for a familiar male voice to answer. "Dad? Hey, it's me. I'm not gonna be able to make it in this morning."

"Oh really? And why is that?" his father asked, and he knew right away that he was suspicious. He never took personal days, even when he _was_ sick. He hadn't in months.

He hated lying to him but he couldn't see the alternative. He couldn't tell him the truth, not without having to explain why she'd spent the night at his apartment.

"Just feeling a little under the weather," he answered. Kate's cheek was clammy when he reached over to cup it with his free hand, her hairline beaded with a cold sweat; he feigned a weak cough that sounded unconvincing to him as he reached over to pull the comforter tighter across her shoulders. "Nothing serious, just the flu."

"You're going to need medication for that – if you come in, I can write you a prescription," his father offered and he fumbled for an excuse that wouldn't make him look guilty. That was exactly what he wanted, for Jack to slip up and confirm that he had something to hide.

"No, I think I just need to ride it out," he insisted. "But thanks."

"So when can we expect you back?" his father pressed.

It would be at least twenty-four hours before Kate was up and about and he felt comfortable leaving her side. He just hoped that his father wouldn't stop by her mother's room looking for her in that time. "A couple of days – I'll call you tomorrow to let you know how I am."

He hung up before his father could ask him any more questions, dropping his head into his hands as the magnitude of what he'd just done began to sink in.

This wasn't him: lying to his father, sneaking around, ignoring his conscience, his oath not to get involved. His one consolation was that he hadn't given in and slept with her yet. He didn't think that he could look his father in the eye knowing that – as far as he and the rest of the world were concerned – he was accepting sex in exchange for doing his job.

He could still see Kate trembling; he lay down beside her, wrapping his arms around her to provide her extra warmth. He wished that his father _could_ see them together, that there was some way to make him recognise how he felt. Then maybe he would understand why he couldn't choose between them.

Her breathing had changed, becoming shallow and more laboured; as he leant over to study her face, he noticed that her lips were dry, her eyes appearing sunken and circled with grey. She needed water. "Kate? Kate, can you hear me?" he said, trying to rouse her so that he could get some more fluids into her.

She moaned and stirred in response, her brow creasing into a deep frown but didn't open her eyes.

"I need you to wake up, okay? Kate?" he insisted, his voice rising in panic when she remained limp even after he lifted her shoulders, giving them a gentle shake, her head lolling against him like a rag doll's.

She must have brought up the Advil when she was sick, he realised.

He eased the thermometer between her slack lips, his stomach tightening when he saw that her temperature had spiked, hitting more than one hundred and five degrees. If it climbed any higher or stayed this severe for too long she was in danger of seizing, even suffering permanent brain damage; unless he could get it down to something safer he was going have to take her into the E.R., even if it meant exposing their relationship to his father.

He couldn't let anything happen to her just because he was afraid of getting caught out in a lie.

When he couldn't bring her back to full consciousness he made a decision: he yanked on his jeans and, covering her forehead with the cloth that he'd been using to try to lower her fever, he scooped her up out of bed – still in his t-shirt from the night before – cradling her to his chest as he made his way to the door.

As he fumbled with the latch, still blowing on her damp skin to cool it, she began to come to, her eyes flickering open, fixing on him before leaving his to take in their surroundings.

"Where're we going?" she asked, blinking at him, her voice thick with confusion.

He smiled, relieved that their secret was safe, but more than that, that she seemed to be on her way back. Aside from her mother's surgery, he couldn't remember the last time that he'd been as anxious as he had for those few moments that he didn't think she was going to wake up.

"Nowhere," he told her, kissing her forehead as he changed course, heading back to the bedroom. "We're not going anywhere anymore."

* * *

Next chapter: Diane interrogates Kate about her relationship with Jack and some frustration/jealousy on Kate's part... ;)


	20. Chapter 20

Thanks for the reviews. I divided up the remaining plot points and I worked out that there are about ten chapters of this fic left after this one, including one of my famous epilogues, so you can expect it to end somewhere around chapter 30... ;)

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Chapter 20.

It was two days before Jack cleared Kate to go back to the hospital; after she recovered from the fever that had him so concerned, she spent most of that time cuddled up with him on the couch until he left her to return to work.

"Morning, stranger. Long time, no see," her mother teased her when she reappeared at her room, still exhausted but feeling like her old self again.

"Sorry, I've been in bed with the flu," she explained as she dropped a quick kiss to her cheek and took usual seat by the window.

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" her mother said, a mischievous glint in her eyes, causing Kate to blink at her in surprise.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she checked, not quite sure how to take this. Why did she get the feeling that her mother didn't believe this was the real reason behind her absence?

"Just that I noticed Dr. Shephard had a little cough too when he came in this morning," her mother told her with a knowing look.

First her dad, now her mom… What was it with her parents and her sex life? "Mom! What're you implying?"

"Come on, sweetheart, you don't think you're fooling anyone with this act the two of you're putting on, do you?" her mother asked, the corners of her lips twitching with amusement when Kate frowned, staring at her, bewildered. She hadn't said a word to her about her relationship with Jack. She was still waiting for her to adjust to her break up with Tom. "I see the way you are when you're around him."

"And how is that?" Kate asked, feigning innocence, though she couldn't help but smile. It was the same speech that Sam had given her in the waiting room: it seemed like it had been inevitable to everyone else but them.

"Like a young woman in love. Have you told him?" her mother pressed when she didn't try to deny it this time.

"Yeah," she confessed, even though she hadn't said those words again since the night that she'd let them slip.

"And?"

Kate smiled to herself. "He loves me too." At least he said that he did.

Her smile faded as she continued, "We're waiting to make it official. He's worried about what his father will say, considering he's still your doctor and all."

"Ah, a forbidden romance – how exciting," her mother said in a conspiratorial tone, her smile coy, teasing.

"For now," she agreed, though she was beginning to wonder if that was all it would ever be. Jack was right, they _would_ be going home soon, and then everything was going to change.

"It's just nice to see you smiling again," her mother told her, squeezing her wrist. "You've had the weight of the world on your shoulders for too long."

She let out a weak cough, taking her hand back to cover her mouth. "Excuse me."

"Mom? Are you okay?" Kate asked, moving to pour her a glass of water from the jug by the bed.

"Seems to be something in the air," her mother said once she'd taken a sip.

"Still, maybe I should get Jack…" she suggested, finding it difficult to shake her concern.

"Oh, don't you worry about me," her mother insisted with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm in the right place for it. I think I'm gonna take a nap but you go, have fun."

She grinned. "Tell Dr. Shephard I said hello."

She had a point. She _was_ in a hospital. "You just take it easy, okay?" she told her, crouching to kiss her forehead when she closed her eyes. "I'll be back to check on you in a little while."

Jack wasn't in his office when she peaked inside; coming back out of the lift on her mother's floor she spotted him at the nurses' station, skimming through a file while a nurse she recognised from her rounds leant on the counter across from him.

As she watched, the nurse reached up to caress his forehead in a way that didn't seem altogether professional; Kate's stomach bottomed out when he looked uncomfortable but didn't try to stop her, acknowledging her with a polite smile before returning his attention to what he was reading.

"You poor thing," she heard the nurse say with a sympathetic wince as she crept closer so that she could eavesdrop on their conversation without him seeing her. "What you really need is a woman to take care of you."

This comment, combined with her lingering touch, filled Kate with outrage. "Dr. Shephard?" she called and he jumped back at the sound of her voice, turning to her with a guilty look. "Can I talk to you?"

She managed to contain her fury as he excused himself and followed her around the corner, dragging him into a supply room as soon as they were out of sight.

"What're you doing?" she demanded once she was sure that they wouldn't be overheard. The last thing she wanted was to make a scene in front of people that they both had to see every day.

"That wasn't what it looked like, Kate," he tried to assure her.

"You did _not_ just say that," she scoffed. He was going to have to do better than that.

"I swear I didn't do anything to encourage her," he assured her, his expression earnest and he almost had her convinced. _Almost_. She wasn't falling for that again. "I've probably only spoken to her about five times since she's been working here."

"Really? Cause it look like you guys were pretty friendly to me."

"I'm telling you, Kate, my father had something to do with it," he argued. "He knows I lied to him. He's testing me."

That, at least, was new; she huffed out an exasperated sigh, unable to believe what she was hearing. She was sick of his father dictating their relationship. Sooner or later he was going to have to stop sitting on the fence and commit one way or the other.

"You think _your father_ put her up to it?" she repeated. "Don't you think that's a little paranoid, Jack?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but you have to believe that I would never betray you like that," he told her, taking her shoulders before she could walk out, forcing her to meet his eyes. "The only woman that I'm interested in right now is _you_."

He was so sweet; she just couldn't stay mad at him, no matter how much she wanted to. "I guess I have some issues in that department," she agreed, softening when she saw how much he meant it.

She hadn't thought that Tom would cheat either, or her mother. It made it hard for her to trust him, or anyone.

"I'm not Tom, Kate," he reminded her gently.

"It's just starting to feel like _I'm_ the one you're cheating with," she confessed once she realised what it was that was really making her jealous: seeing another woman flirting with him out in the open while she had to pretend that that didn't bother her. "You're not married – we're not doing anything wrong."

"I know," he agreed.

"So we shouldn't have to hide," she insisted. Everyone should know that they were involved, that he _had_ a woman to take care of him.

"You're right, we shouldn't." He sighed, raking his fingers through his short as he let go of her. "I'm sorry – I never meant to make you feel like that."

He didn't speak again for a moment, staring at her as though debating something, and then he said, "I have an idea. Marc wants to meet up for drinks after work – why don't you come with us?"

Inviting her to spend time with his friends in a public place. It was a start. It meant that he was serious about her. "Sure," she agreed with a smile. "Sounds like fun."

"Great. I'll let him know next time I see him." He smiled too.

"Ever make out in a supply room?" she asked him when the conversation tapered off into a comfortable silence to let him know that she'd decided to forgive him, lifting a playful eyebrow at him.

He grinned when he understood where she was going with this. "Can't say that I have."

"Not even in high school?" she pressed, smirking in mock disbelief as she tucked her thumbs through his belt loops and pulled him towards her. There was something thrilling about the idea of getting caught.

At least it would solve the question of how to break the news to his father, she thought with a wicked grin.

He shook his head. "No, not even in high school," he told her, running his own hands down her sides to her hips, tracing the patch of bare skin where her top didn't quite meet her jeans, making her shiver.

She planted a soft, conciliatory kiss on his lips, followed by a few smaller ones. "Well we're just gonna have to do something about that, aren't we?"

* * *

Next chapter: Jack and Kate hang out with Marc... Then in chapter 22: Jack asks Kate out on their first official date... ;)


	21. Chapter 21

Thanks for the reviews. As you're reading this chapter, please keep in mind that I'm not American and, as a consequence, know almost nothing about American football, and forgive any mistakes... ;)

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Chapter 21.

After walking Kate back to her mother's room, Jack paid a visit to Marc's office, still not certain that inviting her to join in their plans was the right thing to do.

He hadn't had much time for him of late; he didn't want his friend to resent her for coming between them.

"Are you sure about this, man?" Marc said with a dubious frown when he explained that it was no longer going to be just the two of them.

"What d'you mean? It was your idea," he reminded him, confused. This wasn't the reaction that he'd been expecting. Anger would have made more sense.

"I'm not talking about the drinks, I'm talking about the company," his friend corrected him and his heart sank when he realised that integrating her into his life was going to be even more difficult than he'd imagined.

"You don't like Kate?" he repeated, surprised. He'd always gotten the impression that Marc had a crush on her. He was the one who'd described her as 'gorgeous' when she'd first arrived at the hospital.

"I _like_ her," he assured him and Jack was relieved until he added, "I just remember you saying you weren't gonna do anything about it while she was still your patient's daughter."

"I changed my mind," he told him, defensive at the implication of his friend's words. He'd thought that he could count on his support at least. "She told me she loved me – what was I supposed to do? I couldn't just ignore it."

"What does your dad think about this?" Marc pressed, fixing him with a pointed look.

"You haven't told him," he guessed when Jack didn't answer, his jaw tightening as he glanced away at the wall. "Are you _going_ to tell him?"

"Of course," he insisted, a sharp edge in his tone as he raked his fingers through his short hair. He couldn't keep it a secret forever. She was right: it wasn't fair.

"When?"

He sighed. "I don't know – soon." Sooner or later his father was going to find out; he just didn't want him to get inside his head and make him question his decision when he did. "I never meant for this happen. I wasn't planning on falling in love with her, and I never thought she'd love me."

They were supposed to be friends. How had it all gotten so complicated?

"I think I liked it better when she hated you," Marc agreed.

* * *

"You remember Kate," Jack said, slinging a protective arm around her waist when they met Marc on the sidewalk outside the bar.

Even if his friend wasn't convinced that his relationship with her was the best thing for him now, he hoped that he would at least make an effort with her. It was hard enough knowing that his father didn't want them together.

"Yeah. It's good to see you again," Marc said, forcing a smile, and he was able to relax his guard.

"You too," she echoed, leaning into Jack's side and he knew that she was uncomfortable.

"How's your…?" his friend trailed off, as though unsure whether or not he should mention this under the circumstances.

"She's good," she agreed, her own smile weak.

"Good."

"We should sit down," Jack said to break the silence descended over them as they wandered inside, Marc in front while he and Kate filed in behind.

"Would you mind if we sat at the bar?" his friend asked her, jerking his chin towards the screen in the corner, where a group of men were already clustered. "I wanna keep an eye on the game."

Jack couldn't tell if he was testing her, or just being polite, but he was sure that she must have passed when she agreed, "No, go ahead," sliding onto a stool on his other side. "The Raiders are playing the Buccaneers tonight, right?"

Marc seemed surprised that she knew this, shooting Jack an incredulous look. It wasn't something that a lot of the women they dated with paid attention to. "Yeah," he said, smirking when he recovered himself. "Payback's a bitch."

"He's just bitter because the Buccaneers kicked the Raiders asses in the Superbowl last year," Jack explained for her benefit, just in case this was the extent of her knowledge.

"I know," she assured them, stunning them both when she went on, "Forty-eight to twenty-one, if I'm not mistaken."

She regarded Marc with an impish grin, her green eyes sparkling with mischief as she deadpanned, "It was a good game."

"Beautiful, intelligent and a smart ass!" Marc yelled over the voices of the crowd as the Raiders took possession of the ball. "Jack, I love this girl!"

"Me too," he agreed, turning to her with an affectionate grin, and as she beamed back at him, he leant forward to place a tender kiss on her lips. Around him he could hear people cheering, but he was oblivious to anything that was happening in the game.

"You know, you two should really get a room," his friend remarked, glancing between them and the screen.

Jack flashed him an apologetic smile as he drew back. "I'm sorry, man, are we grossing you out?" he retorted, keeping one arm around her.

"No, I get it – you're in love. It's still just a little…. weird," he confessed.

He had a point, Jack realised. The last time he'd seen them together Kate looked like she could have ripped his throat out and now he was being forced to watch her shove her tongue down it.

"So who do you follow?" Marc asked her to change the subject before things could get awkward again.

"The Hawkeyes."

"As in the _Iowa_ Hawkeyes?" he repeated, incredulous.

"You got a problem with that?" she checked, biting back a laugh as she levelled him with a challenging stare.

"As a matter of fact, I do," he teased her. "I hate to break it to you, Kate, but the Hawkeyes don't count as a real team."

"Hey, at least we're winning," she returned, holding her hands up in mock defeat and as he listened to them argue, Jack smiled, glad that he had thought to ask her along.

* * *

"That nurse was right, you _are_ hot," Kate said later, tracing his jaw with her fingertips, giggling at her double entendre. While he was nowhere near as sick as she'd been, he hadn't escaped without taking on some of her symptoms.

After the Raiders won, thirty to twenty, and Marc left them to celebrate with the other fans, they had moved to a booth in the corner, where Kate now sat with her chin resting against his collarbone, gazing up at him.

"And you're drunk," he told her with a grin. He wasn't sure when it had happened, but he'd noticed her getting more and more relaxed and less in control of herself as the night went on.

"You're the one who's drunk," she said, narrowing her eyes and tapping her glass, which was still half full. "This is only my…" She scrunched her face up in concentration as she tried to remember "…_third_… beer."

He couldn't say that he wasn't surprised; he would have guessed more than that based on her current behaviour and how lethargic she was. Then again, maybe she was just one of those people who didn't hold alcohol well.

"Are you still on anything for your flu? Tylenol?" he asked, just in case something else was helping it along.

"I took some at lunch, but that was hours ago," she insisted with a dismissive wave of her hand, her words slurring together like they did when she was half asleep. "I'm fine now."

To illustrate her point, she flashed him a goofy smile that he couldn't help finding adorable.

So that was it. The pills were worsening the effects of the alcohol, affecting her speech and making her drowsier and less co-ordinated. "Are you? Because, you know, it can take up to five days to leave your system," he explained, laughing at how mellow she was.

She didn't seem bothered by this information. "You know what we should do? We should dance," she told him, ignoring what he'd just said. "You can show me your moves." She tugged on his hand, stumbling back into his lap and giggling when she tried to pull them both up.

"Or I could take you home and save us both the embarrassment," he argued, guiding her to her to his feet.

He managed to steer her over to where Marc was seated at the bar. "Whoa, what happened to her, man?" he asked, grinning when he saw how unsteady she was. "She looks like she had a little too much fun."

"Nothing a couple of dozen aspirin won't fix," Jack agreed. She was going to regret this in the morning. He gestured to the door. "We're gonna call it a night."

"You're taking her back to your place?" his friend checked. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"I'm not gonna sleep with her," he insisted. "But someone's gotta keep an eye on her, make sure she stays out of trouble."

"It's true, you know," she complained in an exaggerated whisper, her expression rueful as she brought her hand up to cover her mouth. "He never wants to sleep with me. We're 'taking it slow', 'cause of his dad, but really, that just means we can't have sex."

"I will never understand you, man," Marc said, shaking his head, the corners of his lips twisting into a smirk.

Jack felt himself flush as he glanced around to see if anyone else had overheard. This wasn't a conversation that he wanted to have in the middle of a crowded bar, in front of Marc.

"Come on, Kate – say goodbye and let's go," he told her, taking her hand.

He led her out onto the street and hailed a cab to take them back to his apartment, helping her into the backseat before he climbed in beside her. She closed her eyes, letting her head fall against his shoulder, dozing off almost as soon as the driver set it in motion, but Jack knew that he wouldn't sleep that night, thinking about what she'd said.

* * *

Next chapter: Kate wakes up with a hangover, and Jack asks her out on their first real date... ;)


	22. Chapter 22

Thanks for the reviews. Glad you all liked tipsy/tomboy Kate. I've had fun writing her without all her baggage in this fic. ;)

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Chapter 22.

Kate's skull felt like it was going to explode when she woke the next morning; she lay very still, trying not to do anything that would make the pain worse until it passed enough for her to crack one eye open.

She was in Jack's room again, in his bed. She was relieved when she saw him propped on his elbow beside her, watching her. It was almost a week since she'd slept at the motel and she was beginning to feel like she wouldn't be able to unless he was there with her.

"Morning," he said, smiling as he leant over to kiss her. How could he be so cheerful? It was annoying.

"Morning," she managed to croak back. Everything was too bright; she lifted her wrist to cover her eyes in a feeble effort to block out the light.

What happened to her last night? As she focused on piecing it together, a few of the details came rushing back: the bar, the game, Marc. The rest was still a blur; she felt a jolt of panic as she wondered if they'd finally had sex and she just couldn't remember it, until she realised that Jack wasn't hung over, and he was reluctant enough when they were both sober.

"Why didn't you stop me?" she complained as her stomach gave a painful lurch. She wasn't going to do it. Not again, here, now.

Jack had a bucket ready for her this time. Why did it always happen in front of him? she thought, frustrated when she found herself losing the battle, hanging her head over it as she threw up.

At least it wasn't on him, she reminded herself. That made it a little less mortifying.

"Here, drink this," he told her, smoothing her hair back and handing her a glass full of murky liquid once she'd gotten it all out.

"What is it?" she checked, sniffing it as she accepted it. It was medicine of some kind, that much she could tell.

"Alka Seltzer." He grinned and she could see that he was amused by the situation. That was easy for him. He wasn't the one whose head felt like it was going to burst. "Simple but effective."

It tasted awful but she forced herself to drink it in case he was right, fighting the urge to be sick again. "Ugh. Kill me now," she moaned, dumping the empty glass and flopping back onto her stomach.

"That bad, huh?" he sympathised, rubbing soothing circles in her back with the heel of his palm, his voice taking on the same stern tone she'd heard him use with her mother as he added, "I hate to say it, Kate, but taking acetaminophen with alcohol can really mess up your liver. You're lucky you didn't do some serious damage to yourself last night. I want you to do me a favour and check with me next time, okay? Don't just leave it up to chance."

"Well you don't have to worry about that because I'm never drinking again," she assured him, sneaking a peek at him out of the corner of her eye. As much as she hated being told what to do, she had to admit that his concern was kind of sweet.

"I'm sorry to hear that because I was hoping I could take you out again tonight," he said, the corners of his lips twitching as he tried not to laugh, and she raised her head to look at him, confused.

"You wanna go out drinking again?"

"That's not exactly what I had in mind," he confessed with a grin.

She felt her breath hitch in her throat. Was he really about to suggest what she thought? "Oh yeah? What _did _you have in mind?" she pressed, trying not to sound too eager as she sat up, her full attention on him now.

"I thought maybe for one night we could just forget how we met and pretend that we're a normal couple," he told her in a low murmur that gave her butterflies in the pit of her stomach.

There was something different about him this morning that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

For a moment she was too stunned to say anything. "You mean go on a date?" she supplied, grinning when he didn't try to correct her. His expression turned serious as he waited for her to give him an answer. "Okay." She nodded, her enthusiasm for the idea growing, and he relaxed. "Yeah."

He grinned back at her, cupping the sides of her face in his palms and dropping a gentle kiss against her forehead.

"Where're we going?" she asked, curious about what he was planning.

"Can it be a surprise?"

"You're not gonna tell me?" she insisted, too intrigued to just let it go.

"You do _know_ what a surprise is, don't you?" he checked, lifting an incredulous eyebrow, chuckling when she scowled, feigning offence. "You'll like it, I promise, but you just have to trust me." He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Will you do that for me? Just trust me?"

"Okay," she agreed, conceding defeat, at least for the time being.

He kissed her cheek, his mouth lingering against it for a moment before he released her. "Now how about I make you some breakfast?" he teased her, getting up.

How did he expect her to eat anything, much less keep it down? "You've gotta be kidding me," she groaned, pitching a pillow in his direction.

* * *

"You really don't look good, Mom," Kate told her mother; her skin was ashen and each time she laughed she broke into another fit of violent coughing as though she couldn't get enough air into her lungs. "I think we should call someone."

"Honestly, Katherine – which one of us is the mother here? I feel fine," she insisted, forcing a smile, but despite her assurances that she had nothing to worry about, Kate couldn't help noticing how laboured her breathing was.

It sounded like she was in pain, she thought as she watched her grip her chest.

"I'm more interested in hearing about what's been happening in your world. How's Dr. Shephard?" she asked in a singsong voice that made Kate feel like she was in high school all over again, changing the subject once she managed to compose herself.

She could see that she wasn't going to get anything more out of her so she decided to humour her. "_Jack_ is great," she agreed with a grin. "He's finally taking me out on a date tonight."

Her mother's eyes lit up on hearing this exciting piece of news, her voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. "Do we know where we're going?"

"It's a surprise," Kate explained, her impatience returning. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since he asked her. "He says I'll like it – that's all I know."

"It all sounds very mysterious and romantic," her mother said with an approving nod. "So I guess the next question is, have you decided what you're gonna wear?"

"No," Kate confessed. She wanted to look nice for him, but it was difficult to know how dressed up to get when she still had no idea where he was taking her.

She sighed. "I think I'm gonna have to go shopping." All of the clothes that she'd brought with her were practical: jeans and tank tops, which were okay for sitting around the hospital, or in a bar, but not for a restaurant or something more formal.

She flashed her mother a watery smile. "I wish you could come with me." It felt like forever since they'd done anything together but sit in that room.

Her mother gave her fingers an almost imperceptible squeeze. How long had she been that weak? "Me too," she admitted, looking wistful at the thought of spending time with Kate outside of the hospital.

"But you don't need me," she continued, shaking off her self-pity. "We never could agree on how to dress you, even when you were a little girl. You always end up hating everything I pick out."

Kate was saved from having to think too much about what her life would be like without these little rituals when the door opened and Jack came in.

"Speak of the devil," her mother quipped, fixing him with a coy smile. "We were just talking about you."

"Don't listen to her," Kate told him, shooting her a warning look when she saw how apprehensive he was. He was paranoid enough about word getting out without her mother adding to it. "She has nothing better to do than gossip."

She stood up from her chair to meet him. "Hey," she greeted him with a shy smile, still not sure how to act around him in front of other people.

"Hey," he returned, and touching his elbows, she snuck a quick, impulsive kiss that turned into another, until the sound of her mother's wheezing reminded them that it wasn't just a social visit.

"I don't like the sound of that cough," he said, stepping back from Kate, his attention on her mother as he moved over to the bed. "Do you mind if I…?" He removed his stethoscope from around his neck, shifting it to his ears.

"Of course not," she agreed, struggling to pull herself up.

In the end he had to help her, his brow furrowing as he listened to her heart. Kate knew him well enough by now to understand that that wasn't a good sign. He was as concerned about her as she was, maybe even more so since he had a better idea of what that meant.

"Your blood pressure is a little low," he confessed when he finished his examination, unfastening the cuff from around her mother's bicep, "and your heart sounds like it's beating faster to compensate. Any pain, tightness in your chest?"

"I have cancer, Dr. Shephard – everything hurts," her mother deadpanned and Kate couldn't tell if she was just irritated by the question or if she was trying to protect her discovering how sick she really was.

"It's probably nothing, but just to be safe, I'm going to order some more tests," he told them. "Just a blood test and another chest x-ray to make sure your lungs are working the way they're supposed to. Later, if we find anything, we might do a CT scan."

"Is he always this thorough?" her mother asked her, the corners of her lips twitching into a smirk and Kate found herself blushing.

"Mom!" she hissed, hoping that Jack was too busy updating her chart to hear what she'd said.

She took his arm and pulled him out into the hall. "I hope you don't mind, but I told her about our date," she explained.

"So long as she's not uncomfortable with it," he said, looking uncomfortable himself.

"She's just happy that I'm happy," she assured him, stretching up onto her toes so that she could wrap her arms around his neck.

He smiled, putting his own hands on her back to support her. "I'm happy that you're happy too," he told her, kissing her.

"So you're really not gonna tell me?" she complained, breaking free from him when the suspense became too much for her again.

"I'll pick you up at eight," he agreed with a grin, pecking her lips one last time before he let her go.

That was hours away. She sighed. "In that case, I have a dress to go buy."

* * *

Next chapter: The date, and Jack makes a decision... ;)


	23. Chapter 23

Thanks for the reviews. I'm dedicating this chapter to Carlie, who asked me ages ago to include a certain quote (The other one is Plato if anyone's curious)... ;)

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Chapter 23.

"Wow," was all Jack could say when Kate answered the door to her room in a red strapless dress and a matching pair of spiked heel sandals, her long hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders. "You look…" He grinned, shaking his head. "Wow."

"Very articulate," she teased him, stepping aside to let him in. "Your parents sent you to Columbia for that?"

"I'm serious, Kate. You look beautiful," he told her, taking her hands and greeting her with a gentle kiss. "Not that you don't always," he murmured, his lips brushing her ear as he pulled back.

She ducked her head as a pink flush crept into her cheeks, grinning back at him, pleased with the compliment.

"You ready to go?" he asked her, to break the tension that followed.

"Yeah, just let me get my purse," she agreed, teetering over to collect it from the bed. "Okay." She glanced up at him with a smile, slipping her arm through his, and seeing how happy he'd made her he was glad that he'd suggested it.

He waited for her to lock up before leading the way out to his car, holding the door open for her while she slid into the passenger seat.

"I hope there's food where we're going 'cause I'm starving," she said as he pulled out onto the street.

"We can't have that, can we?" he teased her, laughing at her not-so-subtle attempt to get him to tell her where he was taking her.

"Don't worry, I won't let you starve," he agreed, refusing to give her more than that. She was just going to have to wait.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Kate," he insisted, struggling to keep his expression nonchalant. Could he help it if she was worse than a kid on Christmas?

"Okay, now I'm really stumped," she told him when he reached the city limits and kept going. "You're not looking for somewhere to dump the body, are you?" she quipped, trying again.

A quick glance at her told him that she was more impatient than anything; he chuckled. "Why? Do you somewhere in mind?" he returned, biting back a smirk.

"We're here," he announced a few moments later as he pulled into a gravel parking lot.

She turned to him, confused, when he killed the engine and put the handbrake on. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

"I'm sure," he agreed, leaning over to graze her lips before climbing out.

She hesitated and then scrambled out after him, folding her arms as she watched him move around to the back.

He'd brought her to a secluded beach, miles away from anything; it was a clear enough night that he was able to count what must have been thousands of stars shimmering overhead, the city lights twinkling in the distance behind them

He peeked over at her as he retrieved a basket and a blanket from the trunk, trying to gauge her reaction, wondering if it had been such a good idea after all.

"Jack," she breathed, catching on, and he relaxed when she smiled, winding her arms around his neck and rewarding him with one of the softest, sweetest kisses that she'd ever given him. "It's beautiful. Thank you."

"You're welcome," he told her, kissing her again, relieved that she wasn't disappointed that it wasn't a five star restaurant or something else expensive and impersonal, that didn't feel like them. He wanted their first date to be special, something that she would always remember.

She took off her sandals and laced her fingers through his, gripping his hand as they made their way down the slope.

He spread the blanket out close to the water, digging a pit and gathering together a pile of wood for a fire.

The corners of her lips twitched with amusement when he went through several matches without success. "Here, let me try," she insisted, holding her hands out for them.

He knew better than to argue with her. She was the one who'd grown up camping with her dad. He tossed the box to her, allowing her to take over, and watching her kneel in her new dress, her feet bare, her legs covered in sand, tendrils of hair curling in the breeze as she concentrated on sparking that first flame, he felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude for the force that had brought her into his life.

For the first time in a long time, he didn't just feel happy, he felt whole.

He handed her a glass of champagne when she sat back and poured one for himself.

"To being normal," he said, holding it up once they both had one.

"To being normal," she echoed, clinking hers against it. She flashed him a lopsided grin. "Whatever that means."

He took a sip and put his down so that he could show her what he'd brought: deli sandwiches – vegetarian –, cheeses and various kinds of salad, with fresh fruit for dessert.

They talked about the food, the weather, the game that they'd watched with Marc, careful to avoid any mention of her mother's condition or the hospital. He didn't want to think about any of that tonight – especially his father – he just wanted to enjoy being alone with her.

She helped him pack everything back into the basket when they were done, and afterwards, she stretched out on her back with her head on his stomach, their fingers entwined across hers.

It made him feel like a teenager again as they gazed up at the stars together without speaking, except that he couldn't remember ever feeling this comfortable with a girl in those days.

"Jack?" she said, breaking the silence after a while, her voice tentative as she craned her neck so that she could look at him.

"Yeah?" he agreed.

"Why didn't you give up on me? When we first met?" she asked. "I was so awful to you – what made you fall in love with me?"

He wished that there were a moment that he could describe to her – one that stood out for him above all the others – but in truth, he didn't have an answer to give her. There was just something about her that made him want to keep coming back.

"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words which laid the foundation," he said, conjuring the passage up from somewhere deep in his subconscious. "It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."

She let go of his hand, rolling over onto her stomach to gape at him. "You did not just come up with that!"

"Why not?" he pressed with grin.

"Because you're not that poetic."

"Ah, but once touched by love, all men become poets," he quoted, unable to resist teasing her a little more.

She flicked her wrist, giving his bicep a playful slap, but she was laughing. "Tell me," she insisted, sinking down so that their eyes were almost level, her chin resting against his sternum. "Where'd you get it from really?"

"I'm a man of many mysteries, Kate," he deadpanned, knowing how crazy it would make her.

"That's not the phrase that comes to mind," she complained with affection, settling with her cheek against his chest, one arm draped across him.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, listening to the waves crash on the shore.

"You know," she told him, lifting her head. "I think tonight has been one of the best nights of my life."

"Me too," he agreed, cupping her jaw in his hands and pulling her down so that he could kiss her. It was different to the one that they'd shared when he arrived to pick her up and in the parking lot: slower, more sensual; he didn't know how much longer he could keep resisting, especially now that he knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her. "But it's not over yet."

He hesitated, almost afraid of what he was about to suggest, then decided to hell with the consequences. "You wanna…?"

"Yes," she agreed, her voice firm, kissing him again before he could finish.

"You don't even know what I was gonna ask," he pointed out, surprised, when they were forced to break for air.

"Yes, I do, and I'm saying yes," she assured him, grabbing his hand and pulling him up with her. "Let's go."

* * *

The drive home felt like it took forever; once inside his apartment they didn't waste any time.

As soon as they stumbled into the bedroom she shoved him onto the bed, almost knocking the wind out of him when she landed on top of him. He continued kissing her as he brushed her hair aside, burying his face in the crook of her neck while he reached behind her to unzip her dress.

"You're sure you wanna do this?" she asked, drawing back to study his expression, but she kept working the buttons of his dress shirt.

"Yeah," he agreed, grinning at her, pushing her back off of him and sitting up to make it easier for her to slide it off his shoulders.

Her frantic movements slowed when she spotted the designs on his bicep. "Another mystery..." she murmured, tracing them with her fingertips, and he could tell that she was surprised. "Why didn't you tell me you had tattoos?" It was the first time that she'd seen them. It was the first time that he'd allowed her to get this close.

"You really wanna talk about that now?" he teased her, nuzzling her throat as he pulled her back into his arms and rolled them over so that he was on top.

"I guess not," she agreed with a breathless laugh, but as her hands fumbled with the buckle on his belt he noticed that they were shaking.

"You okay?" he checked. He could feel her trembling beneath him; he wondered if he'd been too forceful, if he'd hurt her, if she had only pretended to want this because he did.

"Just a little nervous," she confessed.

"Kate, you're not…? You have…?" he asked, finding it difficult to mask his surprise. She was with Tom for twelve years. They were engaged. Surely they…?

"Yeah," she agreed as if sensing his thoughts, her flushed cheeks turning scarlet as she explained, "I lost my virginity to Tom when I was sixteen, and I was with him all that time, so I don't... I don't have a lot of experience – I just want you to know that, before..."

That would make him only the second man that she'd ever slept with. He could see how that might be a big deal for her. "We don't have to do this if you're uncomfortable," he assured her, forcing back his disappointment. A few more weeks wouldn't kill him if that was what she needed. He didn't want her to feel like he expected anything. "We can wait."

"We've waited long enough," she insisted, reaching up to touch his cheek. She watched his face with a tentative smile, her green eyes glistening, her voice coming out so soft that he had almost didn't hear her. "Just don't break my heart, okay...?"

* * *

Next chapter: Some fluff, and a phone call... ;)


	24. Chapter 24

Thanks for the reviews. I didn't expect so many people to comment on the P&P quote! I would have had this chapter up sooner but I've been having a really rough week and I just couldn't get motivated to finish it until tonight... ;)

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Chapter 24.

"That was…" Kate sighed, trailing off as she settled on Jack's chest.

"That was what, Kate?" he teased her with a languid smile, shifting underneath her until he found a more comfortable position, the strength of his arms as he cradled her against him making her feel warm inside, and safer than she had in a long time.

"…Pretty incredible," she finished, eyeing him with a mischievous grin. It was more than incredible: slow and tender after what she'd just confessed, without losing any of the passion that seemed to separate the adult relationship that she had with Jack from the youthful one that she'd shared with Tom.

"Only _pretty_ incredible? I can see we're gonna have to go again," he complained, feigning hurt.

"You're gonna have to let me get my breath back first," she told him when he pressed his face into the side of her neck, laughing at the tickling sensation of his lips grazing the underside of her jaw.

He pulled back with a triumphant look. "Ah, so you admit it took your breath away?"

"I admit you have a few skills outside the O.R…" she allowed, refusing to stroke his ego by admitting that he'd rocked her world. She blushed when he raised an eyebrow at her. "Okay, more than a few."

He let out a soft chuckle, and as they kissed again, she didn't think that she'd ever felt as content as she was there in his arms. She never wanted to get up if it meant leaving them, and him.

"You okay?" he checked when she lay back down against him, concentrating on the steady rhythm of his breathing, his heart, the firmness of his body beneath hers, pensive at the thought that sooner or later it was all going to end. "No regrets?"

"None," she assured him, lifting her head to place a gentle kiss against his lips, before replacing it. "This whole night has been perfect. I was just thinking."

"Oh yeah? What were you thinking about?" he teased her with a grin, and she cringed, hating herself for ruining such an amazing moment. She should be almost to just focus on him, without her mind racing ahead.

"What's gonna happen when I go home."

"You don't have to, you know," he told her, combing his fingers through her hair, which had began to fall back into its natural curls. "You could stay here, with me."

More than anything she wished that this were possible but her mother wanted to return to Iowa as soon as she was well enough to travel and she couldn't deny her that, not after everything that she'd just put her through. "I can't," she reminded him. "My mom needs me. Who's gonna take care of her if I'm not around?"

He nodded to show that he understood, studying her with a thoughtful look. "Then maybe I could come to you," he suggested, his voice soft.

"Your whole life is here," she pointed out, frustrated at how insurmountable the obstacles seemed. She couldn't ask him to give up a promising career at a first rate hospital for her, not to mention his family and friends.

"So what? We fly back and forth?" he argued. There was a long pause; his throat bobbed as he swallowed, hard, and she knew that he didn't want to say it any more than she wanted to hear it. "We break up?"

"I don't know," she confessed. It was the most logical solution, but nothing about this situation was logical. Logical would have been not to get involved with each other in the first place. "But we don't have to make a decision tonight."

"No, we don't," he agreed with a heavy sigh.

She regretted mentioning it when they fell into a miserable silence. "So you never told me about these," she reminded him, running her fingers over his tattoos. They weren't what she'd expected to find when she took off his shirt – she'd always thought of him as conservative, clean cut – but then so far most of her assumptions about him had been wrong.

His shoulders stiffened as she traced the number five on his bicep. "That's because there's not much to tell," he assured her.

His reaction only made her more curious. "Come on, Jack – there must be a story behind them," she insisted, pressing her lips to the dark patches of skin as if she could kiss away the painful memories that lay buried underneath. "When did you get them?"

He sighed, closing his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "A couple of months ago. After the divorce."

She wasn't sure how to respond to this when she knew how difficult it still was for him to talk about. "Well I like them," she told him with a flirtatious smile.

He grinned despite himself. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She grinned back. "I think they make you look sexy and…" She searched her brain for the right word. "…Hardcore."

"Hardcore, huh?" he repeated, pulling her down on top of him so that he could kiss her, his fingers caressing her bare back, but just when it looked like it might turn to something more his cell chirped.

She groaned, dropping her forehead against his. "Ignore it," she insisted when he fumbled to retrieve it from the pocket of his jeans.

"It could be the hospital, Kate," he insisted with a slight frown.

"So let someone else deal with it," she complained, switching it off and tossing it back onto the floor on the other side of the bed. "You and I are gonna do this properly," she told him, punctuating her words with kisses. "You're gonna make good on that promise… then we're gonna sleep… and in the morning… you're gonna take me out for breakfast."

"Yes Ma'am," he agreed with a chuckle, drawing her back towards him.

They settled back under the covers, everything else forgotten, until the phone on the dresser started to ring.

"Don't even think about it," she warned him, letting out an exasperated sigh, sensing how distracted he was. Was it too much to ask for one night without interruption?

Just then her cell went off too, and exchanging a fearful glance with him, she pulled the comforter up to her chest and dove for her purse.

"Hello?" she choked out while Jack sat up beside her to get the other line.

"Kate Austen?" a woman's voice that she didn't recognise said and she felt sick to her stomach as her mind touched on the only reason that a stranger would be calling her in the middle of the night.

"Yeah," she agreed.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but we need you to come down to St. Sebastian's right away. Your mother—"

"Is she okay?" she insisted.

There was silence on the other end, and when the woman spoke again her tone was careful, measured. Rehearsed. "She's taken a bad turn. The doctors are doing everything they can, but they're not confident—"

She couldn't listen to any more, not when she knew what she was going to say. She'd been dreading this moment for two years. "I'll be right there."

She was still in shock as she hit the end button, staring down at her cell, as her hand dropped into her lap.

"Kate," she heard Jack say, and by the sympathy in his eyes, and the concern in his voice, she could tell that he'd just received the same call.

"Don't, Jack. _Please_," she insisted, sliding out of bed and away from him when he moved to hug her.

She ignored his hurt look as she scrambled for her clothes, which were strewn across the carpet with his, sinking onto the edge of the mattress with her dress still open at the back.

Her hands were shaking as she tried to buckle her sandals, so much that she couldn't seem to get the bar through the right hole; seeing this, Jack finished buttoning his shirt and crouched in front of her, and too weak to keep fighting him, she let him do it for her.

"I can't… I can't lose her too, Jack," she whispered, dropping her face into her hands to hide her tears. First Tom, then her dad… "It's just… it's too much."

He kissed the centre of each palm as he took it away, cupping her jaw in his hands to get her to look at him. "Hey, I know. I know, honey, but it's gonna be okay. I told you I wasn't gonna let anything happen to her and I won't. Do you trust me?"

She didn't think that it would but she nodded, wanting more than anything to believe that he was right.

He enveloped her in a fierce, crushing hug in response, kissing the side of her neck, then her forehead.

"Come on," he said, zipping her dress and helping her to her feet, placing a comforting hand on the small of her back as he lead her out of the bedroom and his apartment.

* * *

Next chapter: What's wrong with Diane? Will she be okay? And what will Jack's father say when he and Kate arrive at the hospital together in the middle of the night? ;)


	25. Chapter 25

Thanks for the reviews. This fic is winding down (although if enough people are interested I might extend it by a few chapters since I have two endings in mind, one longer than the other), so since I have a bunch of ideas I can't decide between, I put a poll on my profile where you can vote on my next fic... ;)

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Chapter 25.

When they arrived at the hospital, Jack ushered Kate straight up to her mother's floor.

She was silent on the drive over, staring out the passenger's side window at the dark road; part of him wished that she'd decided to cry or get angry: anything that would give him a clue as to what she was thinking.

"I'm gonna find someone who can tell us what's happening," he told her when they reached the waiting area, brushing her bicep with his palm to elicit a response. "Will you be okay here for a few minutes?"

"Yeah," she agreed after a moment, finally meeting his eyes, but she didn't look okay.

She was shivering, though whether from cold or from shock he couldn't tell; he shrugged his jacket off and draped it around her bare shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze as he moved off in search of someone he could rely on to give him an accurate report.

He didn't want to leave her for long; he almost ran into his father, who was coming from the opposite direction, as he rushed down the hall, scanning it for a familiar face.

After spending the last few weeks trying to avoid him, he couldn't remember the last time that he'd been so relieved to see him. "Dad! Do you know…?"

"Post operative pneumonia," his father explained before he could finish.

"Why didn't someone call me?" he asked as a sickening sense of dread washed over him. The fact that Diane was weaker than usual hadn't escaped his notice – and then there was that cough – but he hadn't allowed himself to believe that that was what it was. How could he have missed something so serious? "I would have come back in."

"Because you have to go home some time," his father reminded him, staring him down as if daring him to challenge him on this. He didn't wait for Jack to respond before he continued, "As soon as the diagnosis became clear I ordered Clindamycin and Aztreonam but so far she isn't responding to the treatment.

"She's dying, Jack," he finished in a gentler, almost pitying, tone. "We called Kate in so that she could say goodbye."

But Jack wasn't ready to give up on her yet. The first time he met Kate she'd referred to him as a 'miracle worker', and though he'd resisted it at the time, he knew that it some ways, she was right: he'd achieved the impossible before; he could do it again. He had to. "There must be something we can do."

"We did everything we could," his father assured him.

"Did we?" he insisted. He should have been there. He never should have left. And for what? So that he could spend the night with Kate: a night that was ruined the moment they both answered their phones?

Just as he would have expected, his father's sympathetic look turned to one of anger. "That is _exactly_ why I asked you not to get involved with that girl," he reminded him, his voice low and dangerous. "You're too close to this case, Jack.

"I saw you come in with her," he told him, cutting him off when he tried to argue, "The way you kept touching her – that's very intimate body language, son. I would ask you just how far you allowed it to go, but considering it's almost two a.m. and she doesn't look like she's been back to her room…"

Jack lost the tentative hold that he had on his temper then. How dare he call him on trying to comfort her? Couldn't he see that now wasn't the time? "You just told me my girlfriend's mother is _dying_ and all you care about is whether we're having sex?" he retorted, ignoring the curious looks that they were getting.

He knew that he was pushing it, but he didn't care, not when he was about to lose the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. "Yes, I slept with her – is that what you want?"

The blood was roaring in his ears; he was so outraged that he didn't register what he'd said until his father repeated, "Your girlfriend?" and then they both fell into a stunned silence.

"This isn't a fling, Dad," he confessed, too tired to fight him as well. He just needed him to understand why, for once, he couldn't take his advice. "She's not some piece of ass that I can just get over because you're worried about how it will affect my career. I'm in love with her."

His father's terse expression changed on hearing this, becoming grave, sad; Jack softened when it occurred to him that he didn't want this to be happening any more than he did. "Someone's going to have to talk to her. Why don't you let me?" he father offered.

Jack knew from experience that this was as close as his father would come to backing down or apologising. "No," he told him, acknowledging his unspoken concern with a grim smile. "I'm still her mother's doctor. She asked _me_ to do this job – the least I can do is finish it."

He could see that his father didn't approve, but at least he knew better than to argue with him once his mind was made up. "If that's what you feel you need to do…"

Kate wasn't in the lounge where he'd left her; he didn't want to intrude when he found her in her mother's room so he stopped just outside the door, watching them.

He couldn't deny the fact that her mother looked much worse than she had the last time he'd seen her: her pale face was haggard and sallow, and when she pushed the oxygen mask aside he noticed that the skin around her mouth has taken on a bluish tint.

"You look beautiful, honey," she rasped as her gaze flicked over Kate. "You should wear red more often."

Kate's lower lip trembled and he could see the tears forming in her eyes as she knelt by the bed. "I'll tell you what," she agreed, taking her hand and squeezing it. "When you get out of here I'll let you take me shopping and I won't complain."

It was taking all of her mother's remaining speak to strength; she didn't waste words, getting straight to the point. "I'm sorry I lied to you. I should have told you the truth, but Sam… he just loves you so much. Promise me you won't stay mad at him for too long."

Kate swallowed, hard, as the tears began to spill over onto her cheeks. "Sshh," she murmured, smoothing the damp hair back from her mother's hair forehead with her free hand. "You don't have to worry about that now, you just save your strength for getting better, okay?"

"Katherine…"

"We'll go to another hospital," she told her, refusing to listen to what she was saying. "We'll find _another_ doctor – as many as it takes to make you well."

When her only response was a feeble shake of her head, Kate decided to try again. "What about that grandchild you were talking about? Don't you wanna be here to meet her?"

"More than anything in the world," her mother agreed with a wistful smile, "but that's not gonna happen."

"It could," Kate insisted, desperate now. "I'll have a baby if that's what you want – I'll do anything, just don't leave me." Her legs gave out then and she sank onto her knees, burying her face in her mother's chest.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was her anguished sobs, and Jack could feel his own heart breaking for her.

A lone tear slid from beneath her mother's lashes as she brought a hand up to stroke her hair.

"I want you to wait outside while I talk to Dr. Shephard," she said and Jack was surprised to hear his name. He hadn't thought that either of them was aware of his presence. "Will you do that for me?"

Kate lifted her head to look at him, her green eyes swollen and pink beneath her streaked make up, but didn't budge from her side.

"I'll be okay," her mother assured her. "I'm in good hands." She regarded him with a weak smile. "The best."

Kate nodded, releasing her hand slowly as she struggled to her feet.

"Katie?" her mother said when she was halfway to the door.

She stopped, her shoulders tensing as if she were preparing herself for what was coming.

"I love you."

"I love you too, Mom," she managed to choke out as she rushed from the room.

Jack wanted to go after her, to make sure that she was all right, but he felt like he should at least hear her mother out; he waited until he was alone with her to approach her, hovering in the spot that Kate had just vacated.

"I want you to take care of her," she said with surprising calm and Jack wasn't sure whether to be touched or overwhelmed that she was entrusting him with something so precious to her.

"Why me?" he asked. He'd failed her once: how could she be sure that he wouldn't do it again?

"Because you're a good man, Dr. Shephard, and a great doctor…" She smiled. "…And because I always liked you."

He swallowed against the lump forming in his throat, forcing himself to return it. "You have my word," he agreed. He might not be convinced that he was the best man for the job, but that didn't mean that he couldn't at least try.

"Thank you." She closed her eyes, her breathing becoming less laboured, until it ceased altogether, and when the feint blip of her heart was replaced by a steady hum he knew that she was gone.

For the first time since he'd met her she looked serene, peaceful; it might have been a relief if it wasn't for what he still had to do.

Kate was slumped in one of the chairs at the end of the hall looking so young and sad, like a lost child, that he almost couldn't believe she was the same woman he'd taken to bed just a few hours before. Just the thought of it made him guilty now, and he knew that it must be the same for her.

"I'm so sorry, Kate," he told her, shaking his head, when she glanced up at him.

He didn't have to explain what this meant. "I don't understand," she said, getting up, her expression bewildered. "What…?"

"Pneumonia. It's a very common surgical comp—" He closed his eyes in resignation when her palm connected with his cheek, the smarting sensation dulled by the ache in his chest. He knew that he deserved it, and more, for making promises that he couldn't keep, but he'd needed to believe that there was something he could do.

"You said it was nothing! You _promised_ she would be okay!" she cried, but instead of lashing out at him again, she collapsed into his arms, crushing his lapels in her fists as she sobbed into his shirt.

"I know, and I wish..." What did he wish? "I wanted to save her, for you."

He killed him to see her hurting like this, knowing that all he'd done was make it worse for her; he didn't trust himself to say the right thing so he just held her tighter, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

It was a long time before she could compose herself enough to form a coherent sentence, and then she asked, her voice so soft and timid that he had to strain his ears to hear her, "Can I… Can I have some time with her, before they…?"

He nodded, releasing her when she stepped back. "You want me to come sit with you?"

She shook her head. "No, I think I just wanna be alone," she told him with polite smile, moving past him, and once again he was left standing there, helpless, watching her go.

* * *

Next chapter: ...? ;)


	26. Chapter 26

Thanks for reviews. When I said I had two endings in mind, I don't think I explained very well: whichever one I write, the epilogue (Yes, there is an epilogue!) will be the same, the new one just takes longer to get there and includes a subplot that wasn't in the original. I hope that's vague enough for you... ;)

* * *

Chapter 26.

The next few hours were some of the longest of Jack's life.

After leaving Kate alone to say goodbye to her mother, he went back to his office to start the long process of reporting her death.

"You are aware that no one's asking you to do that?" his father said, his brow furrowing in concern, when he poked his head in to find him on the phone to the police. "Last time I checked you weren't on duty."

"No, but I was there when it happened," Jack insisted, ignoring him as he punched in another number. If he couldn't be with Kate, then he needed to do _something_. He promised her mother that he would take care of her, and right now, this was the only way that she would let him do that.

"Go home, son. Get some rest. Let someone else deal with it," his father urged him, taking a step inside, but Jack knew that Kate wasn't ready to leave yet and he couldn't face the prospect of going back to an empty apartment. The nights that he'd spent there with her were almost too good to be true; now he couldn't help wondering if it would ever be like that again.

"I got it, Dad," he snapped with more force than he intended, regretting it when a flicker of hurt passed over his father's features and he shook his head, turning on his heel and striding back out into the corridor, the door closing behind him, leaving Jack alone.

He hadn't meant to be so ungrateful when he knew that his father was only trying to lift some of the burden off of him; he slammed the receiver back into its cradle and dropped his head into his hands, forcing himself to take a couple of deep, calming breaths.

When he felt like he was in control of his emotions, he turned his attention to the paperwork that had to be filed before they could release the body to Kate, but as he began filling out the medical certificate for the coroner's office he found himself stuck on the cause of death.

His father had diagnosed her with pneumonia, based on the symptoms, but they didn't get the chance to finish testing her before she passed away. She wasn't responding to the treatment: what if he was wrong and it was something else? Some other complication of the surgery that he'd performed?

"_We did everything we could," _he heard his father say again, but was this really true? He need to be sure.

* * *

The sun was coming up when he went to check on Kate, bracing his shoulder against the doorframe as he watched her help the nurse finish preparing her mother's body to take down to the morgue.

She wasn't crying anymore, which he took as a bad sign. He didn't think that he'd ever seen her look so broken; more than anything, he wished that he could take her into his arms and squeeze all the hurt out of her but he had a job to do first, before he could comfort her.

"Would you mind if I spoke to Miss Austen in private?" he asked the nurse, waiting until she nodded and left the room to pull up the chair next to hers.

"I know this isn't what you wanna hear right now, and I'm sorry for that, but I'd like to request an autopsy, to determine the cause of death," he told her with as much gentleness as he could. "But I need your permission to do that."

"I thought you said it was pneumonia?" she insisted, glancing up at him, an accusing note in her tone and in her eyes, and for a moment, he was sure that she was going to slap him again.

"That's how it looks," he explained, choosing each word with great care, conscious of the thin ice that he was treading on. One false step and he could destroy the trust that he'd worked so hard to build. "But an autopsy will help us confirm the diagnosis. It will also allow us to learn more about the disease – including whether or not the cancer was genetic."

He knew it was selfish to pretend that this was the reason, but he wasn't lying when he told her that he would do anything to stop the same thing from happening to her.

"Whatever you think," she agreed, her voice flat, shifting her hand when he tried to take it.

He led her to his office, where he went over the consent form with her, fumbling through an awkward conversation about organ donation as he tried to shut out the memories of sitting in those same chairs while they swapped stories and picked off each other's plates.

What he wouldn't give to go back to those days, when she would catch his eye and smile, instead of staring at some point on the wall to his left as though she couldn't stand to look at him anymore.

He was relieved when it was done and he could switch back over into boyfriend mode and just be the man who loved her. "You know I'm here for you, Kate," he told her, studying her expression as he reached again for her hand, desperate to find a way to connect. "If there's anything I can do… Anything you need…"

"You could give me a ride home," she told him, letting him take it and he felt something like hope for the first time since they'd arrived.

"Home? You mean my place, or…?"

"My room," she confessed, glancing away from him, her guilt assuring him that she still at least cared enough to realise how much she was hurting him.

He couldn't hide his disappointment as he nodded, forcing a tight smile. "Sure. Like I said, Kate – whatever you need."

He killed the engine when he pulled into her space in front of the motel, half hoping that she would still invite him in, but all he got from her was a murmured, "Thanks", and a fleeting peck on the lips as she slid out, crossing to her door without looking back.

* * *

He couldn't go back to work, so after driving around for a while, he ended up at his apartment, alone, just like he'd tried to avoid, but when he climbed into bed, sleep wouldn't come.

His sheets were still rumpled from their encounter earlier, and her scent was everywhere; each time he closed his eyes he remembered some new detail: the feel of her fingers caressing his biceps, the creamy softness of her skin under his lips, the sweetness of her breath as she sighed into his neck…

As he lay there his mind replayed these images on a sickening loop; when he couldn't stand it anymore he ripped everything up and dumped it into the washing machine and went to take a nap the couch.

* * *

She didn't answer her cell when he called her that evening, or the next morning, and he knew that she was avoiding him. She blamed him for her mother's death, or for her not being there… Either way, it came down to the same thing: she hated him again, and this time, he was pretty sure that he deserved it.

He didn't see her again until three days after her mother's death, when he returned to his office to find her waiting outside.

"Kate! What're you doing here?" he asked, struggling to mask his surprise.

"You wanted to know if there was anything you could do," she reminded him, shifting her weight.

"Of course," he agreed, fidgeting with his key. He didn't think that he'd felt this nervous or awkward around her since they first met. He wasn't sure how to act around her, what she expected. "What do you need?"

"They won't…" She choked on the rest of the sentence, closing her eyes until she composed herself enough to continue: "They won't let me take her anywhere without a death certificate. I asked one of her friends to send me her papers, but they won't give it to me unless I have a medical certificate, so I was wondering—"

"You wanna know if the results of the autopsy are in?" he finished for her, a bitter edge creeping into his tone. She hadn't come for him. She was there to see Dr. Shephard.

"Yeah," she agreed, biting her lip, and he could see that she was relieved that she wouldn't have to spell it out for him.

He forced himself to swallow his disappointment. She'd chosen to come to him, not his father, who was on duty that night: that was something. "Why don't you sit down while I go check?"

Even though he was the one who'd ordered it, he hadn't been able to work up the courage to collect the file, afraid of what he might uncover.

"Blood tests and chest x-rays are all consistent with pneumonia," he told her, unsure whether to feel relieved that the conclusion his father had drawn was right, or guilty for putting her through the experience.

He didn't want to see her reaction, so he focused on drawing up the medical certificate instead, sliding it across the desk to her when it was done.

"There you go," he said, dropping his pen and sitting back, uncomfortable now that transaction was complete.

She flashed him a weak smile as she tucked it into her purse. "Thanks."

A tense silence descended over them as the conversation that they'd both been avoiding loomed; Jack was the first to break it.

"Are we okay?"

"I don't…" She shook her head, narrowing her eyes in confusion as she pretended not to understand the question, but he could see by her shame that she knew exactly what he was asking. "What d'you mean?"

"You and me, Kate," he elaborated. "_Are_ we okay?"

To his surprise, her expression crumpled. "I don't know," she confessed fighting back tears, grabbing hold of his wrist when he turned away in despair. "It's not you, I just… I don't know how I'm supposed to be around you and not…

"I guess what I'm trying to say," she explained, her voice pleading with him not to argue, "is I need some time to deal with this – you get that, right?"

He didn't; at least he didn't agree with it, but he nodded, defeated. "Yeah, Kate, I get that."

* * *

The worst part of it all was that no matter how hard as he tried, he couldn't escape the memories. They were everywhere: at home, in his office, the cafeteria, his car… reminding him of how deeply she'd infiltrated his life, even before they were together.

When he passed her mother's room, he still expected to find her there, but it was empty now, and he had no idea where she went.

He resisted the urge to call her that night, channelling his energy into his work instead, but by the third day he felt like he would go out of his mind if he didn't do something soon. He didn't care if she was pissed that he didn't listen: he just needed to see her, to talk to her, to find out if there was even a small part of her that believed they could still work things out.

There was no answer when he knocked on the door of her room; he moved around to the windows but the curtains were drawn, preventing him from making out more than just the edge of the bed.

A surge of adrenaline raced through him as he crossed the parking lot to reception, afraid that he was already too late.

"I'm looking for a woman who was staying here – Kate Austen," he told the receptionist, doing his best to sound casual despite his heart hammering in his chest. "Late twenties, about 5'5, dark hair, green eyes… Do you know if she went out?"

He tried not to act too impatient as she typed the name into her computer, bringing up Kate's account. She couldn't have left yet: not without at least saying goodbye.

He knew that he was wrong when the receptionist frowned. "I'm sorry, Sir," she said, glancing up from the screen with a sympathetic smile, "but Miss Austen checked out last night…"

* * *

Next chapter(s): Where's Kate? And is she coming back, or will Jack go after her? ;)


	27. Chapter 27

Thanks for the reviews. Hopefully this will explain Kate's distant behaviour last chapter. (By the way, I still need a tie breaker for my poll! Now there are _four _ideas winning!) ;)

* * *

Chapter 27.

"You okay, hon?"

When Kate glanced up, Judy – the manager at Keith's, and an old friend of her mother's – was watching her with a concerned look.

"Fine," she assured her, pushing herself up off her elbows, forcing herself to look lively.

She was rarely hungry these days, and hadn't gotten more than three or four hours of uninterrupted sleep in almost week; she felt listless and sick all of the time now as a result of those things, and the pervasive sense of guilt that seemed to follow her since her mother's death, but she was determined not to let Judy see how exhausted she was in case she tried to send her home.

It was Kate's second day in Iowa and she was back at the diner as though she'd never left; she was beginning to feel like Cinderella after the ball, as if the time that she'd spent in L.A. with Jack had all been a beautiful dream, a fantasy, nothing more.

This was her reality now, her nightmare.

After spending the last few days making arrangements, watching what little remained of her savings get swallowed up in fees and taxes, she was learning the hard way that burying someone wasn't cheap. She couldn't afford to take any more time off – not when she was already in debt from her mother's stay at St. Sebastian's – and her father didn't have much to send her. As it was, she was probably going to have to sell the house that she'd grown up in just to keep herself from sinking. It wasn't like anyone was going to be living there anymore. It was just a stopover for her, until she found something more within her price range.

"I've known you since you were in diapers, Katie. I can tell when you're upset," Judy insisted, her challenging expression reminding Kate so much of her mother's that she had to look away. "You know, none of us expected you to come in so soon – not 'til after the funeral."

"It helps to keep my mind off things," she lied, which wasn't far from the truth. So far she hadn't been able to stop, afraid of the thoughts that crept in whenever she let her guard down – about her mother, and Jack. It was easier not to think too much. It hurt less.

"I heard about Tom," Judy tried again in an effort to reach out to her. "I think the whole town did. I'm surprised he hasn't put in for a transfer."

"It's okay," she assured her, confused by how sincere these words sounded; on an intellectual level, she knew that as her best friend for more than twenty years, she should miss him at a time like this, but he was the furtherest thing from her mind. It all felt so long ago now, like another life, when she was a different person to the one that she was now. It wasn't his arms that she wanted to feel around her; his voice soothing her…

She could see that Judy was just as stunned by her reaction as she was. "The little bastard knocks another woman up while you're busy taking care of your sick mom and it's "okay"?" she repeated with an air of incredulity. "You must be a bigger person than I am."

For some reason, Kate hated the idea of Tom getting credit for her misery; perhaps because then it was like Jack really hadn't existed. "There was another guy, in L.A.," she confessed, overcome with the sudden need to explain, her voice coming out hollow, defeated as she added, "Jack." It was the second most painful syllable in the English language.

"Shephard? As in that doctor you were talking about? _Your mother's_ doctor? Tell me you didn't!" Judy checked, her eyes growing so wide that it looked like they were going to pop out of her skull. "You slept with him?"

Kate could hear the note of disapproval in her tone when she didn't bother to deny it. It had happened, hadn't it? The memory was there, as vivid as the one of staring down at her mother's still face. It was hard to believe that they were both from the same night.

Or maybe it wasn't, and that was the problem. In a twisted way, it made sense.

Judy shook her head, her expression softening into one of pity. "Oh, Katie."

"I know what you're thinking – naïve country girl lets herself get seduced by hotshot L.A. surgeon, only to get her heart broken – but it wasn't like that," she told her, finding it strange to think that no one here knew him. Even though he hadn't been in her life for very long, he was a big part it. Not in the same way as Tom, but at least he was there when it counted. "_He_ wasn't like that."

"So what _was_ he like?" Judy teased her when she seemed to sense that there was more to the story than Kate was offering.

It wasn't something that she'd wanted to delve into, but she found herself grinning as she considered the question. "Well, for starters, he was as brilliant as all the journals say," she agreed. "Cute. Sweet. He was there for me – he helped me get over Tom."

Her smile faded and felt the familiar ache in her chest. He was there to help her get over Tom, but who was there to help her get over him?

"We started hanging out, as friends at first, and I… I fell in love with him." She realised then that she'd never told him, not since the night that she'd blurted it out while she was half asleep. He didn't know, and now, he never would.

"Love?" Judy repeated, and Kate could tell that she was just as surprised. She'd hadn't believed that she would ever feel that way again after Tom. Now she was beginning to wonder if she'd ever really loved him at all. "So what happened?"

Kate shook her head, willing herself not to burst into tears as the magnitude of what she'd done began to sink in. Jack was the one – the one that Tom had tried to warn her about, who was better suited to her in every way – and she'd let him go. "I don't know. I screwed it all up."

She still wasn't sure what made her do it. She had every intention of saying goodbye to him until the moment that she stepped onto the plane. She didn't really want to leave him. On the rare occasions that she let her mind wander back to him – that soft murmur, the smile that he seemed to save just for her, the way she felt when he touched her – it hurt so much that she didn't think she would be able to breathe.

He was gone, and so was her mom. She was alone now.

Judy seemed to pick up on how conflicted she was, touching her arm, her voice gentle, almost maternal as she said, "Why don't you call him? If he really loves you, I'm sure he'll understand. You're not yourself at the moment."

"No. I can't," Kate insisted. She'd broken his heart, after everything, after they'd both agreed it was the last thing that either of them wanted to do. She didn't know if he would ever be able to forgive her; if he would even want to see her again.

And even if she did, how could she explain that it really wasn't him? That she felt guilty, ashamed of herself, because she wasn't there; because she was actually _happy_ while her mother was dying?

Before she met him, she was her whole life. There wasn't even enough room for Tom. She let herself forget that for one night and this was her punishment. She didn't deserve him. She didn't deserve anyone.

She squeezed her eyelids shut, fighting to get her emotions under control, before returning to work wiping down the counter.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Judy insisted when the ground began to tilt beneath her and she gripped the edge for support. "When was the last time you ate?"

As she straightened, Kate caught sight of her reflection in the saltshakers that she'd lined up for refilling and she almost didn't recognise herself. She wasn't wearing any make up and her face was pale, causing her freckles to stand out like little constellations on her cheeks, her eyes ringed with dark circles.

"I had some toast for breakfast," she lied, so that she would leave her alone. In truth, she couldn't remember the last time that she'd done more than pick at her food. That night at the beach with Jack, maybe?

The memory filled her with fresh remorse, though whether for hurting him, or betraying her mother, she wasn't sure. She wondered if he'd even noticed that she was gone yet, or if he was still unaware, giving her the space that she'd asked for in an effort to distance herself from him.

She knew that she shouldn't love him; that if she didn't, they would have been at the hospital that night, and her mother might still be alive, but she couldn't stop her heart from holding onto the feeble hope that he would find her and release her from her self-induced torment.

She dried her palms on the sides of her dress, starting for where a couple was waiting for service, but while she tried to appear purposeful, she couldn't seem to hide the fact that she unsteady on her feet, as though her legs didn't belong to her.

"Katie?" Judy called when she saw how much trouble she was having walking in a straight line. "I think you need to take your break now – at least sit down for a few minutes."

"No, I don't – I'm fine," Kate snapped, losing her temper. How dare she act like her mother when her real mother was dead?

She managed to make it the rest of the way to the table, scribbling their orders on a blank page in her pad, but on the way back, she felt as though she was moving in slow motion, spots of white light clouding her peripheral vision, multiplying before her eyes.

The bell tinkled, signalling the entrance of a new customer, but recognising this as a warning that she couldn't keep doing what she was doing, she ignored it, pulling out the nearest chair and sinking into it.

Maybe Judy _was_ right. Maybe she _did_ need to sit down. If she could just get her body to cooperate, she might even make herself eat something.

She doubled over, pressing her face between her knees as she waited for the spell to pass, but instead of growing clearer, everything faded further away.

The last thing she remembered was a pair of strong hands on her arms, holding her upright, firm fingers digging into the sides of her jaw as someone lifted her head, turning it from side to side.

She heard a voice – not Judy's – calling her name (was she just imagining it or did it sound familiar?) but before she could make sense of what was happening, she blacked out.

* * *

I'm on a roll with these cliffhangers!

Next chapter: Will Kate be okay? Will Jack find her, and will he be able to talk some sense into her? ;)


	28. Chapter 28

Thanks for the reviews. It _was_ cruel so I decided to update. Apparently I'm too clever for my own good, but hopefully there are still _a few_ surprises left.

By the way, I made an AU video based on my Jack/Juliet/Kate/Kevin idea. I'll post the link on my profile for anyone who's interested. I'm still not sure which fic I'm going to write next, just that it won't be Not Anymore. Everything else keeps tying! ;)

* * *

Chapter 28.

When Kate opened her eyes and saw the figure sitting in the chair beside her, she realised why his voice had sounded so familiar.

"Jack?" she croaked, blinking at him in confusion. Where had he come from? She hadn't even told him where she was. "Am I dreaming?"

His worried look turned into a smile, and for the first time, she noticed his fingers laced with hers over her stomach, reminding her of the last night they'd spent together, before it all fell apart. "No, Kate, you're not dreaming," he assured her, squeezing her hand.

* * *

_After convincing the receptionist to show him Kate's room, just in case she'd thought to leave him something – an address, a phone number, even a note – Jack returned to his office feeling even more hopeless than when he'd left it._

_He wanted to hate her, for leaving him, and taking his faith with her, but part of him couldn't help feeling that she had every right to despise him after the way he'd let her down. It was true that she'd hurt him, deeper than she could ever know, but he'd hurt her first, by building their hopes up only to destroy them when he failed._

_He was right the first time. He should have told her the truth. People deserved to know what they were in for, good _and_ bad._

_He was so deep in his self-pity that he must have missed the knock at the door, because when he glanced up, it was in time to see his father enter the room._

_He pulled out the visitor's chair – Kate's chair, Jack thought with a pang of bitterness – and sat down across from him. It was the first time that Jack could remember him doing that; he wondered what he was playing at as he watched his father study his surroundings with an air of discomfort, before clearing his throat, returning his attention to him._

"_We released Diane Austen's body last night." He paused for a moment, then asked, his tone and expression polite, neutral. "Will you be needing time off for the funeral?"_

_At this, Jack let out a derisive laugh. "I'm pretty sure I'm not invited."_

"_You think she blames you," his father said, looking surprised and sad, as though this realisation had just occurred to him._

"_Of course Kate blames me, Dad," he insisted, smacking the edge of his desk with his palm. He dropped his head into it, defeated. "If I had just done my job like you told me—"_

"_She would have died anyway," his father insisted, cutting him off and he looked up at him, stunned._

"_I've been doing this for thirty years, Jack," he continued. "I know a terminal patient when I see one. I know you wanted to save her, but sometimes, that just isn't possible. If I was… harsh… in my reaction before, it was only because the last thing I wanted was to see you go through this."_

_His words touched Jack, and overcome, afraid to speak in case he got too emotional, he just nodded._

"_She's a beautiful girl, Jack," his father said with a smile. "Sweet." He chuckled. "Feisty. She reminds me of your mother at that age."_

_Jack tried to return it, but when he did, it was weak, hollow. "Too bad she doesn't want anything to do with me anymore," he agreed. It was too late to change anything now. She was gone. All he had was his regrets._

_A flicker of disapproval passed over his father's features, and for a moment, Jack was afraid that he was going to argue that it was for the best. But instead, he asked, "Did she tell you that?"_

_It wasn't what he was expecting to hear. He didn't know how to answer. She hadn't, in so many words, but he wasn't sure that she needed to. Her willingness to walk away was enough to convince him._

"_I didn't think so," his father said when he took his time responding, the corners of his lips twitching with suppressed amusement._

_How could he possibly think any of this was funny? Jack wondered when a grin lit up his face and he clapped him on the back. "Don't worry about your cases – I'll find someone to take over for a couple of days. You just get your girl back."_

* * *

"What happened?" Kate asked when she saw that she was in the hospital. She still had a fever, but she felt stronger now; she guessed that it must have something to do with whatever they were feeding her through the IV in her arm.

"You were at work. You passed out," Jack explained, his frown returning. "The paramedics found some abnormalities in your heart rate and blood pressure, so they're running some tests."

She tried not to think about what that could mean. She didn't feel sick, just tired and sad. "Why are you here, Jack?" she asked when a few moments passed without either one of them speaking. She didn't have the strength to fight with him if that was what he was hoping for.

His mood changed then, and he let go her hand. "You didn't think I at least deserved a goodbye?"

He kept his voice low, but seeing the pain etched in his expression, her eyes prickled with tears. "That wasn't it," she told him.

"Then what was it, Kate?" he insisted.

She wanted to end the conversation right there, but she couldn't get the needle out without tearing the vein; she felt cornered as she searched for an explanation that would make sense, hating knowing how much she'd hurt him.

"Hey, talk to me. _Please_," he pleaded, softening when she shook her head, tears spilling over onto her cheeks. "Tell me what's going on."

"I should have been there," she blurted out before she had the change to think about what she was saying.

"Where, Kate? Where should you have been?" he pressed; she wished that he could read her mind so that she wouldn't have to say it, but she could hear the frustration in his tone.

"At the hospital. She was all alone, and I… I should have been there, Jack."

She broke down then, and as understanding dawned over his features, he climbed up onto the bed, lifting her out of the heap she'd collapsed into and wrapping his arms around.

"What happened to your mom – that wasn't your fault, Kate," he told her. "There's nothing you could've done."

She wanted to believe him, but she couldn't, not when it wasn't true. "I knew she was only pretending to be okay, but I didn't care. I chose you and she _died_!" The thought was like a splinter under her skin. She couldn't seem to get rid of it.

He pulled back so that he could see her, cupping her face in his palms. "So now you deserve to be punished?" he supplied. "You can't keep doing this to yourself, Kate – making yourself sick. Your mom wouldn't like it, and neither do I."

At these words, she stopped crying and looked at him, the tenderness in his actions, and in his tone filling her with renewed hope. Judy was right. He still cared about her. He wouldn't have come all this way if he didn't.

"Do you know what the last thing she said to me was?" he asked, still holding her gaze.

She shook her head.

"She asked me to take care of you." He stroked her cheek with his thumb, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. "She loved you, Kate. All she wanted was for you to be happy."

Obviously she hadn't thought this through. How could she when her mother was lying in a casket somewhere, where she could never see her or talk to her again? "I don't wanna be happy!" she insisted. "Not without her!" Her mother would never be happy again. Why should she?

"You don't mean that, Kate," he said with more patience than she'd known he had. She was acting like a madwoman and he was letting her.

"Yes, I do!" she cried.

He hugged her again, harder this time. "It's okay for you to be angry," he told her.

She realised then that she was. All of this time, she'd been taking it out on him, on herself, on anyone who would listen, so that she didn't have to admit who she was really mad at. She _was_ angry, so angry that if her mother wasn't already dead, she could kill her.

"How could she leave me like that?" she sobbed into his shoulder. She should have stayed longer. She should have fought harder. She shouldn't have just given up.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. She wasn't sure if she was apologising to her for hating her, or for failing her and for not being there, or to Jack for running away. Maybe all of them. Maybe none. "I'm sorry."

"I know," Jack murmured against her ear, and she could feel his own tears soaking through into her scalp. "I'm sorry too."

He tightened his grip on her, cradling her against him and rocking her like a child until the door opened and a doctor bustled in.

He stopped, frowning, when he saw them. "Everything okay in here?"

"We just had a few things to clear up," Jack agreed, kissing the top of her head as he released her.

He helped her get settled and she curled on her side with her head in his lap, enjoying the feeling of being close to him again.

"You must be the husband?" the doctor guessed as he picked up Kate's chart, and Jack shot her a questioning look, as if he too wanted to know what they were to each another.

"Boyfriend," she corrected him with a tentative smile at Jack, relieved when he broke into a grin, pressing his lips to her temple.

"How're you feeling?" the doctor asked Kate as he put it back.

"Better," she admitted with a pointed glance at Jack. She still felt drained, but for the first time since her mother's death, she saw light at the end of the tunnel.

Jack let her go so that he could examine her. "Heart rate's still a little fast, and your blood pressure is still slightly below what it should be – nothing to be too concerned about, though," he told them once he'd finished. "We're still waiting on the blood work, but now that you're awake, it looks like you should be free to go."

"You don't wanna keep her in for observation?" Jack checked; she wondered if he was thinking of her mother. The same fear was there, in the back of her mind, and she knew that it probably always would be.

"If this is the first time that anything like this has happened—" Here the doctor looked to Kate for confirmation; she nodded, "—then I don't see that it's necessary. Just make sure she rests, and gets plenty of fluids. I'll let you know if anything turns up."

"Thanks," she agreed with a grateful smile. Right now, she just wanted to go home.

As he turned to leave, she could see that Jack wanted to argue with him. "I'm okay, I think I just need to eat something," she assured him, hoping this would convince him that she didn't need monitoring.

At least not by the doctors at _this_ hospital.

She fixed him with a shy look, infusing her words with as much meaning as she could. "I'm also gonna need a ride…"

His tense expression relaxed into a grin. "Of course," he agreed.

* * *

Next chapter: Jack and Kate spend some time getting reacquainted... ;)


	29. Chapter 29

Thanks for the reviews. I'm not sure why, but this chapter was extremely difficult to write, which is one of the reasons it took me so long to get it posted. (That and I was making another AU Jate video ;)) Hopefully it was worth it. I'm trying to find a balance between Kate's grief and her rebuilding her relationship with Jack. Oh, if you haven't voted and you still want to, I'm about to close the poll. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere... ;)

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Chapter 29.

"We'll stop by the diner so your boss can see you're okay," Jack told Kate as he watched her buckle herself into the passenger seat of his rental. An hour and a half later and the hospital had finally discharged her, once her doctor was convinced that she was out of danger. "She was worried about you when you just dropped like that."

And if he was really honest, so was he, he reminded himself when she flashed him a guilty smile.

"Sure."

While he didn't _really_ think that it could be cancer at her age, this didn't lessen his terror at entering the diner in time to witness her sudden collapse. It was almost a relief when the manager – whose name was Judy or Julie – explained that, as far as she could tell, she hadn't been taking time out to sleep or feed herself.

But that was going to change. He would make sure of it. She was going to regret letting him back into her life.

"Katherine Anne Austen!" the older woman cried, rushing over to her as she followed him through the glass door.

She caught her in a rough hug before she could escape and Jack couldn't help chuckling at overwhelmed she looked. "Don't you ever do anything like that again, you hear me?"

"I'm okay, Judy," she insisted, wriggling out of her grip. "Really. They gave me the all clear."

For now, Jack correct her, but the doctor wasn't expecting to find anything, so he forced himself to push it out of his mind. All that mattered was that the old Kate – his Kate – was returning. She was more animated than he'd seen her since before her mother died.

"Thanks to this doctor of yours," Judy agreed, grinning at him, causing him to let out a modest laugh.

He hadn't been able to do much: just keep her comfortable when he couldn't get her to revive.

Judy lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, shooting a mischievous glance in his direction. "I can see why you fell for him."

Curious about what else she'd said about him, Jack looked to Kate for her reaction.

"_Judy_," she complained, drawing each syllable out, her cheeks flushing a healthy shade of pink.

"I'm sure he's already told you that you need to eat something," Judy continued, her seriousness returning as she fixed Kate with a stern look that reminded Jack a little of her mother. "And don't say you're not hungry."

"Actually, I am a little," she confessed, leaning into him with a smile.

He could see that Judy was as surprised by this as he was. He was all set to spoon feed her for real if it came to that.

"You really _are_ a miracle worker," she told him, impressed.

"I guess I am," he agreed, giving Kate's shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

"So what'll it be?" Judy asked, sliding her pad from the pocket of her apron as they got seated at the counter.

"Whatever you want – it's on the house," she prompted when Kate took her time deciding.

"I don't know," she confessed, looking up from the menu, her expression sheepish. "For some reason I'm craving steak, so a steak sandwich, I guess?"

She bit her lip, thinking for a second before finishing, "And orange juice. I don't think I can stomach coffee right now. I might throw up on you again," she deadpanned to Jack.

Judy arched an eye eyebrow at her but didn't comment on her order as she scribbled it down. "And you?" she asked Jack.

"I'll just get the same," he told her. "Except I _will_ have coffee."

He waited until she disappeared into the kitchen to return his attention to Kate. "You eat meat now? And you don't drink coffee?" he teased her with a playful smirk, reaching up to cup her forehead in his palm. "Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

"Very funny," she retorted, rolling her eyes, but she was laughing as she pulled away. "I'm probably just a little anaemic."

He lifted her hand to where he could examine her fingernails: the nail beds were a pale, translucent pink, almost white. "I think you're right," he agreed.

He brought it back down, but he didn't release it, keeping it wrapped up in his.

A flicker of that old tension passed between them as their gazes locked; she smiled and he smiled back, raising it to his lips before letting go.

As they ate, he filled her in on what had been happening with his other patients, pleased to see her colour returning, little by little.

Everything was so strange and yet so familiar: they were in a diner in Iowa, instead of his office back at home in L.A., and she was wearing the unKate-like yellow dress that marked her as a waitress, eating meat, but more than anything he was just glad to be spending time with her again.

Afterwards, she gave him directions to a house that couldn't be much bigger than his apartment, surrounded by a neat wooden porch.

"Not much, but it's home," she told him as she led him through an entryway the size of a large closet, into the living room.

She opened the curtains to let more light in and as he took in the pictures of her and her parents on the mantel, the mismatched furniture, the homemade throw rugs on the couch, he decided that he liked it. It was homier than the place that he'd grown up in.

"You live here?" he asked. He'd always assumed that she lived with Tom after college.

"I moved back in when Mom got sick," she explained, as if sensing his thoughts, her eyes lingering on a picture of her and her former fiancé dressed up for what he assumed was their senior prom. "It's a good thing too. I'm not sure I could go back there."

She looked so sad that a stab of empathy pierced his heart; he moved up behind her, circling her with his arms, and she leant back into him, covering them with her own, letting her eyes drift shut with a grateful smile.

"I brought something for you," he told her after a moment, feeling her perk up as she opened them again. "Why don't you get settled while I go get it?"

"Sure. Just let me get changed," she agreed.

"Okay." He pressed a light kiss to the side of her face as he disentangled himself from her.

Her watched her kick off her shoes and turn the corner, out of sight, before heading back out to the car where he'd left his luggage.

He'd debated whether or not it was a good idea; he still wasn't sure when he returned to the house to find her on the couch with her legs drawn up to her chest, her chin tucked against her knees, dressed in a pair of old jeans and a faded blue tank top.

"I thought you might want this," he began, placing the square object in her hands when she straightened, unfurling herself and shifting over to make room beside her.

It was her scrapbook. She stared at him open mouthed, her expression unreadable. "Where did you…?"

"In your room, at the motel," he confessed. He hadn't set out to snoop, but when he spotted it poking out of the trash, he couldn't just leave it there.

"Why did you throw it out, Kate?" he pressed, doing his best to be gentle with her.

For a moment he was afraid that she was going to get angry and asking him to leave, but instead, tears welled in her eyes as she traced the design on the cover. "I made it for _her_," she whispered.

He sank into the space that she'd just vacated, pulling her towards him. "So let's look at it," he insisted, opening it up to the first page.

It was filled with pictures of her parents, around the time that they must have met. Her father was in his military uniform in some of them, but his hair was brown and he looked younger than she was now.

She couldn't seem to decide whether she wanted to laugh or to cry as she made a hiccoughing sound, crawling up into his lap, her head on his shoulder, her arms tight around his neck.

He smiled when they came to a baby with dark, wispy curls sticking out in all directions. "You were just as beautiful then as you are now," he told her, nudging her with his shoulder.

He succeeded in getting her to smile in return, but to his surprise, she tilted her chin up to look at him. "Will you come to the funeral with me tomorrow?" she asked, her voice soft, earnest. "I really need you there. I don't think I can get through it without you."

"I wouldn't miss it," he agreed, touched, drawing her in closer when she snuggled into him, her cheek against his chest.

"There. Do you see that?" he asked her when he turned the page to reveal a candid shot of her mother holding her on what looked like her first birthday. She was wearing a short, white party dress, smeared with chocolate, which only seemed to highlight her enjoyment.

Kate's brow furrowed in confusion as she studied it, trying to figure out what had attracted his notice. "See what?"

"How happy she is," he explained. It wasn't just in her smile, or in her eyes: it was coming off of her in waves. He knew that if he'd still been able to ask her, she would have told him that it was one of her favourite memories. "You were the most important thing in the world to her, Kate."

A tearful grin spread over her face as she admired, viewing it through his eyes. "I just wish I could say the same thing about her," she confessed, her tone wistful when she lifted her head, meeting his gaze.

It took him a few seconds to realise that she was talking about him. "Kate…" he said, expecting her to launch into another tirade about what a bad daughter she was for being with him the night that her mother died.

But instead, her words caught him off guard.

"I love you," she murmured, her breath tickling his chin, reaching up to caress his face with her palm. "I've wanted to tell you for so long."

It was a moment before he recovered enough to speak, and then he answered, "I love you too," kissing her softly, tentatively, just like the first time.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked, breaking it when she closed the scrapbook and set it aside. "You're supposed to be resting."

"We can take it slow," she assured him, sitting up straighter in his lap and bowing her forehead against his as she slid her arms back around his neck. "I missed you."

His resistance melted and he grinned, kissing her again. "Me too."

* * *

Next chapter: The funeral, and the return of a some characters we haven't seen in a while... ;)


	30. Chapter 30

Thanks for the reviews. Since a lot of you seem sad to see this fic end I will _try_ to add a few more chapters. :) I still expect it to end around chapter 35 though. This one was the longest to date so I decided to split it into two installments, which means the funeral is in chapter 31 now, but in the mean time, I thought you could all benefit from a little less angst and some more Jate fluff... ;)

* * *

Chapter 30.

"It feels strange, being here with you," Kate told Jack the next morning, reaching a hand out to touch his cheek.

She was lying on her stomach beside him, her face inches from his; he eyed her with a sleepy look, still drowsy, as he struggled back to full consciousness.

She never got tired of watching him dream, or make the transition between sleeping and wakefulness. In those moments, he reminded her of one of the little boys that she was supposed to be teaching; she forgot how much older he was, or that he was a world-renowned surgeon that she'd once believed could perform miracles: there was something about his vulnerability that made her love him even more.

She still wasn't sure what she'd done to deserve something as perfect as being with him, but after coming so close to losing him forever, she was done questioning it.

All that mattered was that he was here now, and he loved her, and that she wasn't alone.

Not now, and maybe not ever.

With nothing to interrupt them or keep them apart, they'd spent the whole night together this time; it was the happiest that she could remember being since before her mother died.

She'd even managed to sleep for more than five hours, shifting closer to him, taking comfort in the warmth of his body against hers whenever her bleak thoughts became too much, until it was hard for her to feel sad anymore.

"Is that a bad thing?" he managed to ask, blinking at her with a perplexed frown as he tried to decipher this comment.

She gave him a tiny smile, the corners of her lips twitching with amusement as she tried not to laugh. "No."

She'd never slept in her old bed with any man besides Tom; Jack was incongruous with her childhood room, surrounded by the relics of her past. He was part of a whole other life: a life where she'd been forced to grow up and become an adult.

Before, it felt like nothing had changed, but now that he was here too, she realised that _everything else _was the same. It was her that was different. Maybe she was wrong, and it wasn't just Jack that didn't belong in Iowa.

It was both of them.

"Come here," he said, returning her smile as he shifted onto his side, drawing her towards him.

Once his arms were around her, she settled on his chest with her cheek pressed against his collarbone, closing her eyes as she breathed in his familiar scent.

It wasn't until that moment that she realised just she how much she'd missed him: in just a few short months, he'd replaced her mother as the centre of her life. In a way, it almost felt like fate. Like that was all that was ever supposed to happen.

"I wish I could just stay in bed with you all day," she murmured. Here, with him, she felt safe: they could sleep and make love and she wouldn't have to face all of those people and their condolences.

She wasn't ready to go back to being the daughter of the deceased yet: right now, she just wanted to be Kate.

He pulled her closer in response, brushing her hair with his lips. "What time do we have to be at the church?" he asked her, shattering the illusion.

It was exactly the question that she'd been hoping to avoid, at least for another hour or so. She sighed, opening her eyes, the peaceful moment gone. "The funeral's not until one," she told him.

Why couldn't it be yesterday? Or never? Now that he was back in her life, she just wanted it to be over so that she could begin the painful process of moving on.

"What time is it now?" he asked.

She lifted her head from his chest, peaking over his shoulder at the alarm clock. "A little after nine," she told him as she got comfortable again. She still had at least two hours before she had to think about it: enough time to try to recapture that feeling. If she was going to get through what lay ahead, she needed to be able to go back to that place.

Almost as if sensing this thought, he grinned, drawing her into a sweet kiss. "We never did get that breakfast," he reminded her.

* * *

"I don't know what's wrong with me lately," she said when the waitress brought them their food, cutting off a strip of bacon and popping it into her mouth.

She'd suggested that they go to a café instead of the diner so that they would be able to continue spending time alone, without her having to accept the apologies of everyone who had to stay and keep the business running.

She knew that she shouldn't be this hungry when her stomach was churning at the thought of what she had to do that afternoon, but it was as though all of the days of depriving herself of a decent meal were beginning to catch up with her at once; until yesterday, she hadn't eaten meat since she was twelve years old, and now it was all she could think about when she tried to order.

"How're you feeling?" Jack asked, glancing up at her with a look that was a little too sharp to be casual, doing his best to keep his tone conversational as he sipped his coffee, but she could tell that he was still concerned about her after the scare she'd given him.

She couldn't really say that she blamed him. She'd even managed to scare herself.

To her relief, she hadn't had another incident since they left the hospital, although she still felt light-headed at times. "Still a little tired," she confessed. She'd tried making herself a cup of coffee when they got up but the smell only seemed to make her more nauseous.

She wished that she could say the same for the bacon.

"At least your appetite doesn't seem to be affected," he teased her when she finished hers and proceeded to help him with his, but a moment later his playful mood turned serious again.

"You wanna call the hospital, see if those test results have come back yet?" he asked, faint worry lines breaking out on his forehead

"No, it's probably nothing," she insisted. She didn't think that she could handle it if it was more bad news. She was never afraid of getting sick before her mother died, but now… "We can just stop by the drugstore on the way home and pick up some iron supplements or something…"

* * *

Next chapter: The funeral (and some familiar faces) and Jack and Kate discuss the future... ;)


	31. Chapter 31

Thanks for the reviews. I think I've said this before, but there will definitely be an epilogue or two... ;)

* * *

Chapter 31.

Kate was grateful for Jack's presence beside her as she entered the church, feeling his grip on her waist tighten, his palm firm against her hip. She wasn't sure what she would have done if he hadn't shown up when he did. She couldn't even bring herself to contemplate it, today of all days.

It was the first time that she'd ever seen him in a full suit, different to the dress shirts and pants that he wore for work; she knew that she shouldn't be thinking about how good he looked on the day of her mother's funeral, or how glad she was to have met him at a time when everything else was crumbling around her, but she was beginning to realise that life didn't just stop when someone you loved died, no matter how much you wanted it to sometimes.

She was sick of feeling guilty because she was healthy and happy and still alive; being with him made her want to start living again like she had when they were together in L.A.

"You okay?" he asked, picking up on how quiet she was, giving her side a gentle squeeze.

"Yeah," she agreed, drawing in a shaky breath as she squeezed back, summoning a smile for him.

He brought his lips to her temple, laying a soft kiss against it. "You can do this," he murmured, close to her ear. "Just remember that I love you."

She nodded as a painful lump began to form in her throat, but before she could respond, they were interrupted by a figure approaching them from the entrance to the church.

It was her father.

Breaking from Jack, she launched herself at him as soon as he was close enough, feeling like a little girl again as she buried her face in the front of his dress uniform.

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry," he whispered, stroking her hair, and she could hear the sadness in his voice. As strained as their marriage was, he'd never stopped loving her mother… or her. "I came home as soon as I could. How are you?"

"I'm coping," she answered when he pulled back so that he could get a good look at her, keeping one arm around her. She shot Jack a tearful grin. "Jack's taking good care of me."

As though remembering that they weren't alone, her father shifted his attention to Jack, acknowledging him for the first time since arriving.

"Glad to hear it, son," he told him, reaching over to shake his hand. "I guess I can forgive you for stealing my daughter away from me," he deadpanned as he accepted it.

A wry grin tugged at the corners of his lips as he kissed the top of her head and released her, and Jack let out a good-natured chuckle when she returned to his side.

"It's nice to see you again, Sergeant," he agreed.

"You know, now that you're dating my daughter, you can call me Sam," her father assured him, his pale eyes twinkling with amusement despite the tears that she could see glistening there, lighting up his grave expression.

* * *

The next hour was a parade of faces from Kate's past: people that she'd grown up with and some that she hadn't seen since she was a child.

Her father was the first to pay his respects, then Judy, followed by a couple of the other waitress from the diner who had made up her mother's circle of friends.

It was Kate's turn last.

As she got up from her place beside Jack on the first pew and walked up to the dais, clutching her notes, her palms were sweating and she was shaking so much that she was afraid she was going to pass out again.

Given the choice, she would rather be anywhere, doing anything else. But choice didn't seem to have much to do with it.

Once she reached her destination, she took a deep, calming breath, glancing down at her father, then Jack, both of whom smiled at her, encouraging.

"A lot of you already talked about how lucky you were to know my mother—" she began, her voice sounding hoarse and unfamiliar to her own ears "—how brave she was to fight the cancer for as long as she did, so I won't repeat what's already been said."

She bit down on her lip to prevent a sob from escaping, but almost as soon as she did, she felt another one bubbling in her throat. Writing a eulogy for her mother was the hardest thing that she'd ever had to do: harder still now that she knew the truth. "What I will say is that she wasn't perfect, but she was my mom and I loved her. She was my best friend…"

It was all too much; she let the paper fall from her hands, using them to cover her mouth instead. "I'm sorry," was all she could manage as she fought the urge to run out of the church, away from all of this.

Seeing how distressed she was, Jack jumped up and rushed to where she was standing, wrapping his arms around her, and for a moment, she just let him hold her, sobbing into his chest.

"I didn't know Diane very well," he announced, coming to her rescue to give her time to compose herself.

"Thank you," she whispered, lifting her head, relieved that she didn't have to keep talking.

"But what I do know is how much she loved her family," he continued, his voice growing in confidence. "Her last thought was of her daughter – she wanted to know that she would be okay after she was gone."

He smiled at her, speaking more to her than anyone else in the room. "She wasn't perfect, but she was a good mother – everything she did, she did for Kate…"

* * *

She clung to Jack's hand as they lowered her mother's casket into the ground, the pain in her heart fading to a dull ache when it hit her that it was finally over.

No more hospitals, no more treatments, no more surgeries.

Her mother was at peace now and so was she.

"Katie?"

She looked up from the grave at the sound of a voice behind her. The mourners were beginning to disperse; through a gap in the crowd she saw Tom, coming towards her with a woman that she'd never met before.

As he stopped in front of them, she felt Jack tense, his fingers closing tighter around hers.

"I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am, about your mom," he said, clearing his throat, shifting his weight in a way that left no doubt about how uncomfortable he was.

"Thank you," she told him, her voice coming out stiff and formal. She transferred her attention to the woman beside him. She was pretty, she decided. "Is this her?"

It didn't matter, but after twelve years, she couldn't help being curious.

"This is Rachel," he agreed, shooting the woman an apologetic look.

She flashed Kate a weak smile, her eyes straying to a row of headstones before she could catch them.

She was just starting to show; taking in the small bump that strained against the buttons of her coat, Kate was surprised that she didn't feel any more envious of her than she would of any pregnant woman.

There was still a part of her that felt she deserved it: the ring, the baby, the title, after all of the work she'd put into their relationship, but she no longer wanted it or wished that it was her.

"I forgive you," she told her, both of them. "No, you know what?" she amended when she realised that even if she could go back in time, she wouldn't change what had happened. In losing him, she'd gained something else, something _better_. "I feel like I should be thanking you. You saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life."

When she glanced back at Tom, she could see that he was hurt. "What's he doing here?" he asked, changing the subject, his eyes locking with Jack's. "Do you really think it's appropriate? I mean considering you're the one who killed her."

She felt Jack's arm go rigid, his jaw clenching with fury, and for a moment, she was afraid that he was going to hit him.

"He's with me," she confessed to diffuse the situation, hoping that Tom would get the message and leave them alone.

If anything, it was more inappropriate for him to show up with his new _wife_, she realised with a stab of betrayal when she noticed the gold band on his left hand.

"I thought you hated him?" Tom insisted and she wondered if he was jealous. Good. He should know that he wasn't the only one who'd moved on. "You said he was an arrogant jerk and you wouldn't go out with him if he was the last man on earth."

She cringed at hearing these words repeated, almost afraid to look at Jack in case he was offended, but when she checked his reaction, he seemed more amused than anything.

"I was wrong," she agreed, fixing Tom with a pointed look. "I was wrong about a lot of things."

She smiled as she turned back to Jack. "He's actually pretty amazing." His expression softened with happiness, and leaning towards him, she snuck a couple of impulsive kisses, not caring that Tom was still watching.

"I get what you meant now about there being someone better for me out there," she told him, resting her cheek against Jack's shoulder.

She could see that Tom was annoyed at having his words thrown back in his face, but for once, she didn't feel guilty about it.

He was the one who chose to end things by cheating on her. All that mattered was that she found someone who could love her the way that he couldn't, the way that she deserved. The way her mother would have wanted.

"I really am sorry, you know," he repeated, throwing a rueful look back over his shoulder as he led Rachel away.

"Are you gonna be all right?" Jack asked her when they were gone.

"I think so," she agreed, slipping her arm through his. "But can we just go?"

Neither of them spoke for a moment as they trailed out of the cemetery, towards his rental.

"How long 'till you have to go back to L.A.?" she asked him, breaking the silence. So far today, she'd already said goodbye to her mother and Tom; she couldn't say goodbye to him too.

"A couple of days at least," he told her, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion, parting his lips as brow though trying to decide whether or not he should ask her why.

"I wanna go with you," she blurted out before she could second guess herself. "For good."

The idea was frightening and liberating at the same time. For the first time in her life, she was free to do whatever _she_ wanted, without having to factor in Tom or her mother's illness, and she was pretty sure that this was it.

His eyes widened in surprise and he stared at her, stunned, before he recovered. "Are you sure, Kate? Moving interstate – that's a big decision. I'd understand if you needed a little more time to think this through."

He was trying to sound rational, reasonable, just like she'd come to expect from him, but she could tell that his heart wasn't in it. Her relocating L.A. would allow them to build a future together. He couldn't argue with that.

She grinned. "I'm sure," she agreed, kissing him again, and an ecstatic grin spread over his face. "Being here the last few days… Now that my mom's gone, it just doesn't feel like home anymore."

* * *

Next chapter: Packing fluff, and more on Kate's mystery illness... ;)


	32. Chapter 32

Thanks for the reviews. I would have updated by now, but this chapter turned out to be really long. Hopefully it was worth it and you're all happy with the new development... ;)

* * *

Chapter 32.

"What d'you want me to do with this stuff?" Jack asked Kate when he peeled back the flaps on a box of old Christmas and Halloween decorations and other souvenirs from her childhood.

Two days had passed since the funeral and he was helping her clear out her parents' house so that she wouldn't have to make a trip back when it was finally sold.

The first step had been to pack her belongings into cartons that they'd then arranged to be shipped to his place in L.A.

The other rooms were proving much harder for her; he knew that she was dreading the moment that she would have to unlock her mother's door and erase the last tangible traces of her existence. She had her wedding ring and a few other small tokens but it wasn't enough. It never was.

"It can just go in the trash," she told him, eyeing the contents of the box with a wistful look before turning away to dig through another. "Unless you think there's anything in there worth selling."

He fished out a red and green felt stocking with "_To Mom, Love Kate_" pasted on it in gold sequins. It was dated 1985: she couldn't have been more than eight years old when she made it.

"You don't want any of it?" he pressed, thinking of the scrapbook, now safe inside her suitcase, concerned that she was being a little too ruthless in her quest to rid herself of her past. He didn't want her to regret it later when she'd finished making peace with what had happened.

"I can't keep everything, Jack," she insisted with a determined set of her jaw, adding a couple of dolls to the pile for the yard sale, and dropping a third – missing one eye and most of her hair - into a trash bag.

She wiped her hands on her jeans and stood. "Besides," she finished, pushing him back on the old sofa he was sitting on and swinging her knee over his to straddle his lap. "I've got everything I need right here."

Setting the stocking aside with the other things that he'd managed to salvage, he cupped her hips to steady her. "We're never gonna get this done if you keep jumping on me like this," he complained when she regarded him with a languid grin, her fingers snaking around his biceps, using them to pull herself closer, but he couldn't really say that he minded.

"I seem to remember you doing your share of jumping," she teased him as her arms went around his neck, a hint of suggestion in her tone, making him chuckle. Now that she was his again, he couldn't get enough of her, and it seemed that she couldn't get enough of _him_ either.

He shifted his hands to the small of her back, and she edged forward in response, her thumbs brushing the smooth skin of his cheeks as she kissed him.

They were running out of time; they still had the rest of the attic and her father's office to get through before tackling the master bedroom, but it felt so good to be near her again that he couldn't bring himself to stress too much. If he had to, he would just take a few more days off.

She broke from him with a series of small, consolatory pecks when her cell erupted from its resting place beside her mother's sewing machine. "Mmm… sorry, I have to get it – it could be the lawyer," she told him with an apologetic grimace. "Raincheck?"

"I'm gonna hold you to that," he assured her, catching her in one last, passionate kiss before he allowed her to slide off his lap.

He returned to sifting through the boxes in front of him while she hurried to pick it up, only half tuning in her side of the conversation as she went through the usual pleasantries ("Hello?… A lot better now, thank you…").

But when he heard the sharp rise in her voice, he stopped pretending that he wasn't listening. "That's not possible," she argued, clearly agitated. "Yeah, but—"

As he watched the colour drain from her face, he found himself growing more and more impatient for her to get off the phone so he could ask her what it was all about.

"Oh," she whispered, her shell-shocked expression turning to one of horror as the person on the other end said something that she didn't like. "No, that really won't be necessary," she assured them, lifting her free hand to massage her brow. "Thank you. Bye."

She punched the end button, staring at her cell as though she didn't recognise it; he knew that he should give her time to digest whatever had just happened, but he couldn't make his body obey, moving over to her, rubbing her arms to soothe her as he asked, "Everything okay?"

"That was Dr. Green from Mercy Medical Centre – you know, the doctor who treated me when I was in hospital?" she explained, coming out of her trace.

He remembered. He hadn't liked the guy: he was sloppy, and careless with her health, releasing her so soon after she came in. "What did he say?" he pressed.

"He said… I'm pregnant," she confessed, taking a step back, pulling her bottom lip into her teeth as she waited for his reaction.

"Wow," he breathed, letting out a disbelieving laugh, too stunned to formulate a more intelligent response, but he sobered when he saw how conflicted she was.

She looked like she'd just been given a death sentence, he realised, bewildered, until an unsettling thought occurred to him. "Are you gonna tell Tom?" he asked her, to hide his anxiety.

Why else would she be so unhappy?

"I don't see why he has to know," she told him, drifting back over to the sofa.

"You don't think he deserves—"

"He doesn't _deserve_ anything, Jack," she snapped, squeezing her eyes shut while she drew in a measured breath. "Tom and I haven't had sex in months, even before we broke up."

But _we_ have, he wanted to tell her as a surge of relief coursed through him. That meant the baby was his.

When she opened her eyes again, they were glistening, the words dying on his lips as he worried that this was somehow about _him_, that she wasn't as invested in their relationship as she'd claimed to be.

He could think of worse things than raising a child with her, but not if she didn't want it too.

"And besides, if I _were_ pregnant, I would've shown signs of it by now." She dropped back onto the cushions, drawing her knees up to her chest. "He must have gotten the results mixed up or something."

"You passed out, Kate," he reminded her, perching beside her, forcing back his hurt as he tried to understand why she was fighting this. Before, it was the farthest thing from his mind, but now, he couldn't deny that it made sense.

"Because I wasn't sleeping," she argued.

"You're craving meat."

"You said it yourself, I'm anaemic."

"Anaemia is very common during pregnancy," he teased her, a grin pulling at the corners of his lips when she began to look less certain; he thought she might even be warming to the idea. "Your body needs more iron, so if you were already, say, a vegetarian..."

"But I'm on the pill," she insisted, cringing at her naivety as she added, "It was always enough before."

"You were throwing up when you were sick, and the morning after we went to the bar," he reminded her, frowning in thought as he did the math.

Of course there was always a very small chance that she'd taken it as instructed, without interruption, and still managed to conceive. They would never know for sure. What was done, was done. None of it mattered now, not when there were more pressing questions at hand.

Like whether or not she was still pregnant and would remain so, he realised when he thought of the abuse that she'd inflicted on herself in the past week. It couldn't have been good for the baby. No wonder she'd collapsed when her body was already working overtime to support the new pregnancy.

"When's your next period due?" he asked her.

"Not until the end of the week," she admitted.

"I guess when you miss it we'll know for sure," he told her with a lopsided grin, reaching over to tuck a loose curl behind her ear. As unexpected as it all was, he couldn't help being pleased when he was on the verge of getting everything that he'd ever wanted.

"I don't think I can wait that long, Jack," she insisted.

He needed to be sure too, so that he could start coming up with a plan. His life wasn't exactly baby-proof: he was going to need to get a bigger place, with room for a nursery, and to start cutting back his shifts so that he could be there for her, and their child, when it eventually came.

"Why don't I go to the drugstore and get a test?" he suggested. "The early detection ones can usually pick it up in the second week."

At this, her tense expression relaxed into gratitude. "Okay," she agreed.

* * *

"Have you ever taken one of these before?" he asked her as they sat on the couch an hour later, watching the plastic stick on the table for a sign that one of them was right.

So far he could only make out a single murky blue line. He was glad that she'd asked him to wait with her: he wanted to be there with her when she got the results. He couldn't stand the thought of her shutting him out again, especially over something like this.

"Once, when I was sixteen," she confessed in a far away voice, and he glanced over at her, curious. "It was the only the second time Tom and I had sex, and we forgot to use a condom. Stupid, huh? Lucky for us, it was negative."

He wondered if it wasn't, would she be married to Tom now, instead of Rachel? Would he ever have met her?

Would her mother still be alive?

It was amazing, how one split second decision could change the course of your entire life… or someone else's. If she'd chosen another doctor, or another hospital, he would still be in L.A., struggling to fill the void that Sarah had left him with, and their potential son or daughter wouldn't exist.

"Well you're not sixteen anymore, Kate," he told her, squeezing her hand, grateful that life had something different in store for her… for both of them. If they could survive her mother's death, without it breaking the bond that they shared, they could survive anything.

"You could've fooled me," she said, refusing to meet his eyes, and he could hear the shame and embarrassment in her tone.

She continued to stare at the test for a moment, as the line became clearer but not less conclusive, before sighing and shifting her attention back to him. "Listen, if this changes things for you, or you think it's too much too soon, I get it, but I don't think I could handle an abortion right now," she said, her voice coming out so soft that, at first, he was sure that he must have misheard her.

The idea of not going ahead with it had never even entered his mind; he blinked at her in astonishment, stunned that she would even consider that that might be what he wanted.

"Whoa, who said anything about an abortion?" he asked her. He was suddenly glad that he'd followed her home to Iowa. If he hadn't, would she ever have told him, or just assumed that he didn't care?

She was definitely afraid of _something_, he realised.

Another loss, he decided, noting the protective way that her palm rested on the waistband of her jeans. He wondered if she was aware of it. She didn't seem to be.

"You're not upset with me?" she checked, relaxing her arm, her hand sliding down to her thigh, and it occurred to him that she thought she was going to have to choose.

"I was there too," he teased her, before she could convince herself that he blamed her, and she laughed, ducking her head to hide the crimson flush that crept into her cheeks.

"I remember," she assured him, a hopeful smile lighting up her features as she asked, "You really wanna do this? Have a baby?"

He thought back to their first unofficial date, how they'd both expressed their desire for at least one child. Maybe it was crazy when he'd only known her for a few months, but he couldn't think of anyone that he'd rather share that experience with.

"Yeah," he agreed, grinning back at her. "I really wanna do this."

On impulse, he glanced at the test, to see that a second blue line was now intersecting the first, creating what could only be a plus symbol.

"Kate?" he said, motioning for her to follow his gaze, confused when she did and a fresh sheen of what he was sure weren't happy tears formed over her eyes.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked her, wrapping his arms around her.

"I was just thinking about my mom," she confessed, curling against him. "When Tom asked me to marry him, she was the first person I told."

Her voice wobbled and broke as she finished, "I just wish she could be here to see this. Maybe if she knew, she would've held on longer."

"She tried, Kate," he told her, hoping that this wasn't going to set back the progress that she'd made in moving forward with her life. He needed her. Their baby needed her. "But in the end, her body just gave out."

"I know, I just… I don't know how I'm gonna do this without her," she sobbed, and for the first time he understood how hard this must be for her, becoming a mother just as her own mother was leaving.

"She already taught you everything she knew – the rest you'll figure out on your own," he assured her, holding her tighter. Every child was different: even with the benefit of her mother's help, she would still need to figure out her own way of doing things. "You have your degree, and I'll be with you every step of the way."

She lifted her head with a tearful grin, kissing him gently. "I love you so much," she murmured, keeping their faces joined as they caught their breaths.

"I love you too," he returned.

He let his palm fall against her stomach when she settled back into him and she covered it with hers.

"If it's a girl, I wanna make her middle name 'Diane'," she told him and he smiled.

"I think she'd like that," he agreed.

* * *

Okay, so originally, I wasn't going to do the Jaby thing, but after everything I put Kate through in this fic, I thought she deserved something nice, and what could be nicer than her own little family with Jack, considering that she lost hers? Plus I just loved the symbolism of them bringing a new life into the world the same night that her mother was leaving it. ;)

I could end it here, but since you guys seem to want me to keep going I have three more chapters planned that show how Jack and Kate are settling into their new life in L.A... ;)


	33. Chapter 33

Thanks for the reviews. I'm glad you all seem to be happy about the Jaby. :)

* * *

Chapter 33.

"Anna," Jack murmured, rousing Kate from the light doze that she'd drifted into. "Or Laura."

"What?" she moaned, confused, lifting her head and cracking her eyelids open a fraction of an inch so that she could squint at him in the darkness.

It was the middle of the night and he was supposed to be asleep… At least she hoped that he was awake and conscious of what he was saying. She hated the idea of him dreaming about other women – especially ones that he'd been involved with – while he was in bed with her.

"For the baby," he explained, and she relaxed, until she snuck a peek at the clock and realised how late it was.

"You wanna talk about this _now_? At two am?" she asked him, unable to keep her irritation from finding its way into her voice. She was exhausted after getting up early to pack; not to mention the emotional drain of being forced to relive her past while, at the same time, adjusting to the news that she was about to become a mother herself.

"You're right, I should be letting you rest," he agreed, as though sensing her thoughts, kissing the top of her head. "It's just…

"When Sarah and I got divorced, I figured that was it – I would never be a dad – and I tried to be okay with that, but then when you told me you were pregnant…"

He smiled to himself and seeing, for the first time, how stoked he was that she was giving him that chance, she felt her annoyance at being woken up begin to melt away. He didn't have to be this enthusiastic, but he was. She still wasn't sure how she'd gotten so lucky.

Maybe there really was a God after all.

"Why did you think I would want you to get an abortion, Kate?" he asked, breaking the silence that followed, his expression all seriousness again, and she could see that it was bothering him. "You have to know that I would never ask you to do something like that—" He swallowed, his voice cracking, and she knew that the next part was hard for him "—Not unless it was really what you wanted."

She shook her head before he could convince himself that it was. She meant what she said when she told him that she couldn't. If the experience with her mother had taught her anything, it was that life was a gift, even if it could still be taken away at any time.

"Was it because of what happened with Tom?" he pressed, trying to understand her reaction. "Is that what he wanted you to do?"

"No," she assured him, propping herself up on her elbow so that she could look at him. If she were pregnant, Tom would have done the right thing. She had to give him that much. "I guess I just… panicked. A baby is a big commitment and I wasn't sure we were ready for that."

"Bigger than you moving to L.A.?" he teased her, and she blushed as she realised that he had her there. Either way, she was taking a huge gamble on him, and their future together, it was just a little more complicated when there was another person involved.

"So the alternative is what? You stay here and raise the baby on your own, without family support, on what you make at the diner?" he suggested, and hearing it put into those terms, she felt another blush creep into her cheeks. "Don't you think that's a little crazy?" His expression darkened with hurt. "Not to mention unfair."

It was irrational, but she needed him to understand that she had no desire to confine him to her, either on purpose or because he felt responsible for her. She didn't want to be like Sarah… or like her mother. "My parents only stayed together because of me," she reminded him. She was still amazed that her father had endured what he had just to be in her life… and guilty that it had never occurred to him that he deserved better. "I didn't want that to happen to us. I want you to be happy."

"Believe it or not, Kate, that's not what this is," he assured her, and she knew that he was telling the truth. She couldn't remember a time when she'd seen him this content.

She shifted her elbow, so that it no longer acted like a barrier between them, lowering her head to his chest as she let his reassuring words wash over her.

"I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you even before we knew there was a baby involved," he continued and she smiled. "I figure we would have ended up here eventually – it just happened a little sooner than we thought."

"It just all feels too good to be true," she confessed, "like I should be waiting for the next bad thing to happen."

Almost as soon as she and Tom had gotten engaged, the doctors had found the first lump and diagnosed her mother with cancer. The last time that things were going this well for her, she died. She didn't know if she would cope if someone else she loved was next: her dad. Jack. Or their baby…

"Nothing bad is gonna happen, Kate," he told her, just like that, as though he knew something that she didn't.

"What if it does?" she insisted, her stomach twisting into a painful knot like it did whenever she thought too hard about it. "I've been so stressed, I haven't been eating… What if something goes wrong?" Could grief make you have a miscarriage? She'd heard of things like that happening before…

"It won't," he repeated, fixing her with a stubborn look.

"You said that before," she reminded him, but in her head, she added, And look what happened. "How do you know this time will be any different?"

"Because for once in my life, I have faith," he admitted. "I need to believe this was all for a reason, and so do you.

"As soon as we get back to L.A. we'll find you an OBGYN and make sure everything's okay, but in the mean time—" He grinned, back to teasing her again "—What d'you think of Emily? I thought we should go with something classic, to fit with Diane. Emily Diane Shephard," he tried out, carefully annunciating each syllable, and she couldn't help the tiny smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Unless you think we should hyphen it…"

But by then it was getting closer to three.

"_Good night_, Jack," she told him, forcing herself to sound stern despite her amusement as she wriggled out of his embrace, rolling onto her side so that her back was turned.

She kept her eyes closed, but she didn't object when he slid his arms around her waist, kissing the crook of her shoulder as he buried his face there, moulding against her in what she was sure must be the perfect fit.

* * *

Now that she knew how much they both wanted the baby, Kate was relieved when Thursday came and went without any sign of her period. But just in case, she superstitiously refused to discuss names with him, at least until after her first appointment.

Jack's father had offered to pick them up from LAX. As they disembarked the plane, and spotted him standing at the gate, she tightened her grip on Jack's fingers to steady her pounding heart, more determined than ever to make a good impression on him, if not for their sakes, then for their unborn child's.

With her own father away so much of the time she wanted him or her to have at least one set of grandparents to go to if he or she ever needed to.

"Dad, this is Kate," Jack said, letting go of her hand with a reassuring squeeze, as soon as they were close enough to start making introductions.

After the things that Jack had told her, she expected him to look right through her, or to make some snide remark about knowing who she was, but instead, he regarded her with a polite nod.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Kate," he said, and searching his tone for sarcasm, she found none. He fixed Jack with a tentative smile, a silent apology in his eyes. "My son's told me a lot about you. I was… sorry… about what happened to your mother."

Up close, he wasn't as intimidating as she'd imagined when she tried to picture how the meeting would go. Outside of the hospital, he reminded her of any other father: Tom's or her own. "Thank you."

He didn't seem to know what to say after that. He greeted Jack with an awkward hug before clearing his throat. "While I remember, your mother wanted me to ask if you would be free for dinner on Sunday," he told him, and when Jack shot a nervous glance in her direction, she found herself swallowing against a bitter lump at not being included, until he added, "You _and_ Kate. She's making pot roast."

For a first time in over a decade, that sounded good. "Sure," she agreed, flashing him a genuine smile. Whatever his real feelings about her relationship with his son, she could see that he was trying. He wanted to be supportive of it, and that was enough for her for now. "Just tell us what to bring and we'll be there."

* * *

"Come in, come in," Margo Shephard said when she opened the door to them two days later. As soon as she saw her, Kate understood where Jack gotten his looks from: she was an attractive brunette woman who bore a striking resemblance to her son; she couldn't help being won over as those familiar dark eyes sized her up, her expression relaxing into a welcoming smile. "This must be Kate."

Kate had spent the afternoon in Jack's closet, taking out everything that she'd put there the day before, while he offered suggestions from a safe distance; as his mother moved on to greet him, she was glad that she'd settled on a simple black dress that didn't make her look too much like a farm girl.

"Thank you for inviting us," she said, trying to appear more confident that she felt. She'd never been in a house this big or expensive; she was almost afraid to sit down on the leather upholstery in the sitting room where Jack's father was waiting. "You have a lovely home."

She knew that she'd said the right thing when Margo beamed, shooting her son an approving smile. "Aren't you sweet?"

"Why don't I get us all a drink?" Christian asked, clapping his hands and getting up from his armchair when she took her place on the sofa beside Jack. "What will you have, Kate?"

She exchanged a wary glance with Jack as she fumbled for an answer, pleading for him to help her out. They'd decided to keep the news of her pregnancy to themselves until her second trimester, when his parents had had time to get to know her. The last thing she wanted was for them to assume that she was trying to trap him.

"Kate's not drinking tonight," he explained, without elaborating, but she couldn't help noticing Margo's eyes on her, studying her with a curious look.

She could see that his father was surprised too, but he seemed to know better than to ask. "Okay," he agreed, heading for the liquor cabinet on the other side of the room. "In that case, I think we have some orange juice somewhere."

* * *

The meal itself went better than Kate could have hoped, with Jack's parents questioning her about her hometown, her school, her plans now that she was in L.A. She still hadn't decided what she was going to do until the baby was born – find another temporary waitressing gig, maybe – but she knew that she wanted to get a real job eventually. She was tired of existing. It was time for her to start living her life.

"Why don't you let me help you with those?" she said, gathering her and Jack's plates afterwards when Margo began to clear the table.

"Thank you, Kate," she agreed with a grateful smile, taking hers and Christian's and leading the way out into a spacious modern kitchen with gleaming silver appliances.

They made small talk about the meal, the weather, the flight from Iowa, while she washed and Kate dried; as the conversation moved on to Jack, Kate could feel herself beginning to relax, relieved that his mother seemed accepting of her.

"Where do these go?" she asked, picking up a pair of crystal wine glasses.

"Just in that cabinet over there," Margo told her, gesturing to one over the stove.

Kate moved over to put them away, freezing with her fingers on the handle when she heard her say, in the same casual tone, "So, Kate, how far along are you?"

She turned to in time to see Margo pull her hands from the water and face her, wiping them on a dishcloth.

"Sorry?" she said, wondering if she'd just misunderstood her.

"You're pregnant, aren't you?" she stated. It wasn't a question.

Kate knew that there was no sense in lying to her: she was going to find out eventually. "About four weeks," she agreed softly. She hadn't believed the doctor at first, when he tried to tell her that she was already in her third week: she was surprised to learn that gestational age was measured from the day of your last period, rather than the actual date of conception. "How did you—?"

"I'm a mother," Margo explained, as though this were equal to some kind of superpower.

She was so hard to read. Kate wasn't sure how to react, whether she considered this a good thing or not. "Are you going to tell—?"

"Christian?" she supplied, the first hint of a grin softening her features. "No. It's up to you and Jack to decide when you're ready." Her gaze travelled down to Kate's toned stomach, which was yet to betray her condition, and she smiled. "You just worry about taking care of our grandchild."

Kate nodded, forcing herself to return her smile, her eyes filling with tears at how warm and maternal she seemed in that moment. It made her miss her own mother. She didn't think that it would ever stop hurting, but somehow, knowing that Jack's mother was there for her helped.

Margo shook her head, her smile splitting into a broad grin. "I was beginning to think I'd never see the day.

"Since you shared your secret with me, I'm going to let you in on one too," she told Kate once she'd had time to digest this, lowering her voice. "So far, I like you better than Sarah…"


	34. Chapter 34

Thanks for the reviews. I have returned from my little foray into other fandoms... at least for now... ;)

* * *

Chapter 34.

"Kate, come on – open the door!" Jack insisted, slapping his palm against the hard wood.

He'd always taken the stories that his male colleagues told about their pregnant partners' mood swings with a grain of salt, never imagining that _he_ would end up caught in the crossfire.

He really needed to get into the bathroom to shower and shave for work, but Kate had locked herself in there just as he was clearing up after breakfast…

…Which he was now beginning to regret cooking for her…

"It's nothing I haven't seen before," he reminded her, letting out a frustrated groan as he pressed his forehead against it; he had to scrabble for a hold on the doorframe to keep from stumbling into her when she yanked it open a second later.

"Exactly," she agreed, poking her head out, wiping her mouth with the back of her palm. "It kind of ruins the mystery."

When he took a step forward, she took one back, bracing her hands against his chest to create a kind of barrier between them. "Don't come any closer – I don't wanna throw up on you again," she said, frowning at him, all seriousness, and it was all he could do not to laugh at how dramatic she was being.

Of course, that wouldn't go down well with her, he decided.

She looked awful, her freckled cheeks managing to be pale and a little green at the same time. "I don't know what you're talking about, Kate – you're beautiful," he told her, because despite this – maybe even because of it – she was.

He brought his hands up to rest on her hips, his large thumbs spanning her stomach, massaging gentle circles in the bare skin under her tank top to soothe it. "You're always gonna be beautiful, no matter how sick you get."

She rewarded him with the beginnings of a smile, but before he could move in to kiss her, she clapped her palm over her mouth and bolted back inside, wrenching the lid off the toilet.

She was so preoccupied that she didn't seem to notice when he followed her in, crouching beside her and gathering her long curls in one hand while he rubbed her back with the other, paying extra attention to the area between her shoulder blades where the muscles were unusually tense.

"Besides," he murmured, kissing her neck when she was done, "You were always my favourite patient."

"That's good, because you're my favourite doctor," she teased him with a wry smile, closing her eyes as she sat back between his legs, leaning into his chest, allowing him to support her.

He gave her a moment to recover before he climbed to his feet and held out his hand.

"Your appointment's at one, right?" he checked as she used it to pull herself up, filling a glass with water and offering it to her.

She accepted it with a grateful smile. "Yeah," she agreed, taking a long sip. She bit her lip as she set it down on the bench, her expression wary. "You know, you don't have to come—"

"I want to," he assured her before she could finish making excuses for him, kissing her shoulder, his arms finding their way around her waist.

He wanted to go, not just because after months of using his work as a distraction, he finally had something worth taking time out for, but because her first appointment with their new OBGYN would also mark the first time that she'd set foot inside St. Sebastian's since her mother's death.

Neither were things that she should have to do alone.

As if sensing his thoughts, she caught his eye in the mirror and smiled. "Then I guess we'll see you at one," she agreed.

* * *

He met her at the entrance to the hospital, still in his scrubs from the procedure that he'd performed that morning, so that they could go up together.

"You okay?" he asked her when he noticed how quiet she was as they crossed the foyer to the bank of lifts that would take them up to the maternity ward.

"I always thought I'd be doing this with my mom," she confessed, her voice soft, almost apologetic for bringing up something that was still so painful for both of them.

Since their return to L.A., they'd done their best to regain a sense of normalcy: they bought groceries, and did laundry together, and went to the beach, but there were still nights where she slipped out of bed to go cry in the living room, when she thought that he couldn't hear her, and he didn't know what to say or do to make it better for her.

Slowly, piece by piece, she was healing, but every day, there was a new challenge: something that she found, or read, or saw that made the past difficult to leave behind.

"Of course back then I figured Tom would be the father," she teased him, flashing him an ironic grin, and he was relieved that she didn't seem to be dwelling on it now, determined, instead, to enjoy the experience, since it was something that they would never have again.

She gripped his hand, her seriousness returning as she finished, "But I'm glad things change. I'm glad it's you," and he squeezed back, touched.

They'd looked into doctors at other hospitals, where it wouldn't be so emotional for her, but now that the worst part was over, and he was walking those halls with her as if no time had passed, Jack was glad that they'd changed their minds.

It was still the place where they'd met, where they'd shared their first kiss, where they'd fallen in love; as he followed her into the empty lift, it occurred to him that he was standing in a spot just like this one when she'd agreed to go on what he now considered to be their first date.

There were so many good memories mixed up with the bad, some of his best: as far as he was concerned, it seemed only fitting that their child begin his or her life there, where he felt like his had.

She was staring at the doors in front of them, lost in her own head. "Hey, Kate," he said, to get her attention, as this thought sparked a new one, one that brought a smile to his lips. He hadn't stopped thinking of the visitor's chair in his office as hers, even though it had been almost two months since she'd spent any time there. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving," she agreed, glancing back over at him, touching her belly in what he was sure was an unconscious gesture – she'd been doing that a lot since discovering that she was pregnant – her face splitting into a grin of her own as she seemed to catch on. "Why, what were you thinking?"

He could feel his own smile growing, warming to the idea as he said, "You wanna stay for lunch…?"

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Since the poll ended with yet another tie (and I miss canon), I've decided to go with the season five/six back to the island fic, which I'm calling "Unfinished Business".


	35. Epilogue

Thanks for the reviews. ;)

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Epilogue

"Okay, guys, time to pack up!" Kate announced at the sound of the bell, clapping her hands to get the children's attention. "I want everything put away by the time I count to ten. One… Two…"

As a couple of the kindergarteners took up the counting, she stopped in front of a small, blonde girl who was still absorbed in drawing what looked like a purple butterfly. "Olivia, did you hear me? Your daddy will be here any minute."

"_Olivia," Kate repeated, enjoying the way that it rolled off her tongue. "I like it."_

_She was sitting up in bed with Jack beside her, cradling their hour old daughter while he read out the list of names that they'd made._

"_Yeah?" he checked._

"_Yeah," she agreed, returning his grin as he leant in to kiss her._

_The night before was one of the longest nights of her life – second only to the night that her mother died, the night of Olivia's conception, she realised – but she forgot all of the pain when the doctor handed her her baby a few minutes after sunrise._

"_You okay?" Jack asked as she settled her head back against his shoulder._

"_Tired," she explained, closing her eyes. She couldn't remember a time when she'd been this exhausted… or this content._

"_What I meant was, how are you?" he pressed, and when she opened them again, she saw that he was watching her with an intent look._

"_A little sad," she confessed. _

_As amazing as he was, there wasn't much that he could do except bring her ice chips and hold her hand during her labour; he'd lent her his mother to help talk her through it, but it wasn't the same as having her own there._

_She glanced down at their daughter, asleep in her arms, and smiled. "But I think I'm gonna be okay."_

_He kissed her again, softer this time, pulling back when they heard a gentle tap at the door._

"_Come in."_

"_How're my girls?" her father asked with a polite nod to Jack as he entered the room. _

_After learning that Kate was pregnant, he had retired to a desk job so that he wouldn't miss out on his only granddaughter's childhood like he had hers._

"_Great. We're calling her Olivia – Olivia Diane Shephard," she told him._

_He nodded again, swallowing hard, and she could see that he was getting choked up as he stooped to kiss her, stroking her daughter's tiny cheek. "She's beautiful, Katie. Your mom would be so proud."_

"_You think so?" she asked with a hopeful smile, feeling her own eyes fill with tears. _

_More than anything, she wanted to believe that wherever she was, her mother was looking down on them, and that she was happy, because she finally was._

"_I know so," he agreed.  
_

"But Mommy, I wanna finish my picture," Olivia complained.

Her teacher was setting up for parent night so Kate had agreed to take both classes for the afternoon.

"You can finish it at home, sweetie, okay?" she told her, returning her crayons to the box.

For a moment, she was afraid that her daughter was going to stage a mutiny, but when she lifted her head, her face broke into a bright smile.

"Daddy!" she cried, snatching up her drawing and leaping from her chair.

Kate turned to see Jack standing in the doorway, watching them with a smile.

Still clutching her artwork Olivia ran at him across the classroom and he caught her, picking her up with an exaggerated groan. "You're getting too big for this, you know," he told her and she giggled, offering him the sheet of paper. "See what I made?"

He accepted it with his free hand, examining it with the look of someone in an art gallery. "Wow. Look at that, Mrs. Shephard – isn't that great?" he asked Kate as she approached them.

They made such a cute pair, Olivia with her fair hair and Jack with his dark, but with matching sets of deep brown eyes.

She smiled. "It's beautiful."

"_Let's get married," Jack said as Kate finished feeding Olivia and settled her back inside her car seat on his desk._

"_You're not serious," she insisted, eyeing him with a sceptical look as she picked up her own sandwich._

"_Why not?" he asked, frowning at her._

_To prove his point, he took a ring box out of his desk drawer. __"I've been carrying this around for weeks, since the day Livvie was born," he confessed, and she felt her eyes widen in shock as he opened it to reveal a small diamond ring. "I was gonna take you out and do this properly but I knew you wouldn't wanna be away from her for that long, so I'm asking you now – will you marry me?"_

_She realised then that it wasn't just an impulse, or a way of legitimising their daughter and appeasing their parents. He'd given it a lot of thought. "Yes," she agreed, smiling at him, feeling as though her face would crack as she gave him her hand and he slipped it onto her finger. "I'll marry you."  
_

"You ready to go?" Jack asked Olivia, setting her down.

"Almost," she agreed, scurrying off to get her backpack.

"I'm here for the parent-teacher meeting," he teased Kate when she was gone, drawing her into a tender kiss.

"Jack, not in front of the kids," she told him with a soft chuckle, pulling away after a moment.

"You're right," he agreed, lowering his voice to a suggestive murmur, meant only for her. "I guess we'll just have to save it for later."

He brought his lips to her ear, his hot breath tickling the side of her face, sending a thrill of anticipation through her. "Maybe we can start working on that little brother or sister our daughter keeps asking for."

They had put off expanding their family so that she could focus on her career, but as only children themselves, Kate knew that they both wouldn't mind having at least one more.

Being around children all day had only increased her eagerness.

She gave him a coy smile, flushing when Olivia reappeared beside them, holding her bag out for Jack to carry. "Got everything?" she asked her, relieved that she didn't seem to have heard.

"Uh huh," she agreed, sliding her hand through his. "Bye Mommy."

"Be good for Daddy," Kate told her, dropping a light kiss against her forehead.

Six years had passed since that fateful consult, and she still amazed at how wrong she was in her initial impression of Jack; how someone that she'd sworn to hate could turn out to hold the missing piece of her heart.

Each day she woke up grateful to Tom for figuring out what she should have known all along: that he wasn't what she needed, just a step in the road that led her to Jack, who she now realised was the true love of her life.

The kiss that she gave him was soft and lingering, as lingering as it could be with the other parents trickling in. "I'll see you later," she told him with a grin as she turned and headed back inside.

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Okay, so that's the end. Thanks again for all of your reviews and encouragement. ;)


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